Wednesday evening – east along the St. Lawrence
I am writing this on the Ocean Train, which runs from Montreal to Halifax through Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. It is a twenty-two hour journey, but this train has been delayed by three hours so I have been in my seat for a long time already and we are still in Quebec.
It is ten thirty at night and I have been issued my blanket and pillow and the lights have been turned down here in Comfort Class (read Steerage). I have managed to get a two seater space to myself as there are only about fifty people on the two comfort class coaches. Everyone else is living it up in Sleeper Class. If you are in Comfort Class, you are not allowed to eat in the dining car.
HOW’S THAT FOR CANADA THE LIBERAL, EGALITARIAN SOCIETY.
MY ASS.
For one third of the price of a sleeper car, the seat is surprisingly comfy. The centre bar between the two seats pulls up to allow me to lie across them both. There is a big space underneath the seat for my bags, and the space allows the seats to push back in a really cool way, it’s as if they swing forward in an arc, rather than actually lean back. This means that you can lie back without driving the person behind you demented. And there’s loads of legroom. Would somebody please adapt these seats for use on planes.
When I asked why the train was delayed a security man told me the brakes aren’t working on the train. Having some experience of the ‘international language of lying to customers about why the plane is late’, I don’t think he was supposed to tell me that. So I hope it all goes okay. There are no steep descents anyway, according to my travel companion, Jean.
Cape Breton jam-making bear watcher
Jean is a middle-aged Presbyterian minister’s wife from Cape Breton, who loves making jam. She has been in Montreal caring for her grandchildren while her daughter recovers from an operation. She’s really cool. In a devout Presbyterian kind of way. She winces every time I take the Lord’s name in vain, but she doesn’t say anything. I’m not sure what age she is, but she has perfect skin. No life of clubbing and smoking for her, I’d say.
She loves nature. Her husband moved ministry recently and she’s still trying to settle into her new house. She told me she went out one night to take in her washing and realised a black bear was standing looking at her. So she hightailed it back inside and woke her husband up to let him know. So he said make sure and lock the door.
I said someone had told me that you should punch a black bear on the nose and she said, no, you should just run away really fast.
Limey the Native American narcotics agent
Jean and I met in the queue. We also met a Micmac, a Native American from Nova Scotia, called Limey, after the doctor who delivered him. He is a Canadian narcotics agent (I swear I am not making this shit up) and he is on his way home to eastern Nova Scotia for two week’s salmon fishing. He has a German Shepherd called Echo who is his drug dog. Echo, unfortunately, was in the kennels for his holidays and not on the train. Otherwise, we coulda had some fun.
Limey and Echo are one of the sixteen members of an all-Native American narcotics unit that work for police services across North America. There are Cree, Iroquois, Mohawk and many other nations in the unit.
I am so pitching the television show to the first media mogul I meet.
Before Limey became a cop (about fifteen years ago), he used to work on skyscrapers as a construction labourer. Apparently, high-rise construction is something that Native Americans are particularly renowned for. He worked on the CN Tower, the Sear’s building in Chicago, and the Empire State Building.
So, in terms of the plotline of my tv show, I was thinking, you could have a main character who had a problem with alcohol or something, who got careless one day and didn’t strap his buddy in properly and then the buddy fell to his death from the CN Tower. And the main character is wracked by guilt, and goes into narcotics work to make amends. But he is so wracked by guilt, that his only friend is his dog. Who is this really intelligent German Shepherd called Bravo or something.
Didn’t they have a similar show about a Mountie?
When I have my quiet time in the Lord’s presence
The night was full of broken sleep as the train stopped at dozens of fiddly little stations along the St. Lawrence river and loud Quebecois’ got on and off, chattering in French and laughing loudly. Occasionally, I managed to hoist myself out of my sleeping position and glare at them. Unable to speak for tiredness. I finally went into a deep sleep around two am, lulled by the feel of the train rocking underneath me.
At four am, Jean, who I had installed in the two seater behind me, shook me awake to see the sunrise. Which was fine. Except she wanted to talk to me about how beautiful it was. Which was also fine. Except that she expected me to be able to respond. Which I was only capable of after two cups of coffee and several hours of staring out the window. By about eight in the morning.
It was worth it, though. We were heading into Rimouski at the time, so the rising sun shone on the water of the St. Lawrence for a brief moment before we headed south towards New Brunswick, through deciduous forest alongside a wide fast river. We rose a couple of hundred feet and were plunged into dense fog that was rising up from the river like some strange vapourous cloud. The sun burned it off in less than an hour and we have been travelling through the interior of New Brunswick ever since.
There are a lot of trees in this state. It reminds me a lot of the part of Sweden I visited last year, around Stockholm. Or perhaps a ramshackle Maine, although I haven’t been there, just seen pictures.
The air is crystal clear. All the farmhouses are white clapboards, with blue or red roofs. Their edges are clearly defined and the white puffball clouds in the sky stand out in extreme three-d against its bright, bright blue. I feel as if I am moving through a picture postcard. There are barns shaped like upturned boats, all painted a deep red colour, and little lakes with swimming platforms scattered in front of wooden holiday cottages.
Every now and again we thunder alongside a river for a few miles. These are big wide salmon rivers, with the smolts working their way upstream at the moment. Towns are small and scattered. There are no defining boundaries on properties, you seem to cut your lawn up to where you think it ends.
Jean showed me a hymn she wrote this morning during sunrise.
“When I have my quiet time with the Lord, sometimes a song comes to me”, she said.
Having seen the same sunrise, I think I know what she means.
Friday, June 24, 2005
Café Chaos on the Rue St. Denis with Loïc the Stoic
Montreal photos link under the title - just click on it.
As I sat typing on the terrace of the Café de Beau Poseur, or something like that last night, a young African man approached me, holding a cigarette. I held out my lighter for him to use. He said no, could he sit down and talk to me. I said I didn’t speak French. He sat down anyway and began to speak to me in English. I said I was leaving in a minute. He brought over a full glass of wine and proceeded to drink it while telling me that he was a student in McGill University up the road and that he liked to talk to new people.
I sighed inwardly. I really didn’t want to have a broken English conversation. I was too tired after six hours walking around the city under the hot Montreal sun.
“What do you study?”
“I’m doing a PhD in wind energy in France and I am here doing an internship on Canada’s alternative energy policy.”
I get my buzz from wind turbines, I do
“Oh right.” Great, a broken English conversation with a guy who’s into wind farming. Just what I need on a hot Tuesday.
Actually, he was pretty interesting. From Cameroon originally, sent to study in France by his parents when he was fifteen. He subsequently went to university and did a degree in electrical engineering and now his passion is wind power. We talked about environmental issues for a while. I said that I was shocked at how wasteful Canadians are, particularly with paper products. I suppose it is something to do with all the trees they have, and the logging companies and the lumber companies and the paper mills and the paper product manufacturers etc, etc.
We talked wind turbines. He said the average Canadian turbine is 70 metres in diameter. He wanted to develop smaller turbines that could be used in urban areas, but Canada wasn’t interested in funding this type of research. Presumably because they have enough space to build enormous great farms without anyone complaining if an entire bog slides down a mountainside as it did in Mayo.
It started to rain then, big fat drops that were more painful than actually wet, so we decided to go to Café Chaos, a worker co-operative bar further up the street. Inside it was the usual dark, red lit, grimy wooden space. This time, one long wall was covered in cartoonish graffiti of some character whose name escapes me, but whom I had doodled all over my journals in school. You know, the guy with the big nose, peering over the wall.
Microbrews in Café Chaos
His name was Loïc. I couldn’t remember it, so after about four attempts to memorise it, I eventually linked it to stoic. Loic the Stoic. It suited him. He was very intense for his age, just twenty four, and a little morose about his chances/ its chances/ the future. Very stoical. I explained who they were to him – the Stoics - and he corrected me on one of the finer details.
Right. I’m dealing with a really smart guy here.
We talked a lot about sociology and the elitist nature of French society. About the difference between social and symbolic capital and how French power-brokers use symbolic capital to keep the poor in their place. For example, using cultural questions in exams. I don’t know how accurate this is, but I wished I had had some of this ammunition at any number of EU-related conferences I attended for dealing with patronising French delegates.
The single beer turned into three. The music in the bar moved seamlessly back and forth between The Cure and some dreadful heavy metal band. It was as if the bar staff were having an argument about the music and kept switching it on each other.
We talked about Africa a bit. He said Cameroon was very conservative and religious. It sounded just like Ireland about thirty five years ago, actually. He said that when he went home on holidays one time, his uncle the bishop came to see the returned émigré. Instead of kissing the ring, he shook his hand. There was a stunned silence in the house.
I said wait another few years till they find out about the bishop’s illegitimate children and the money he stole from the diocese to educate them.
By midnight I was exhausted and I had to make my way back up the Rue St. Denis and home, but we agreed to meet at the same café for coffee the next morning and tackle Mont Royal, the dormant volcano that rises up above Montreal. And gives it its name of course.
New Jersey girls on the town in Montreal
When I got back to the hostel, Joanne the Aussie nurse who spends most of her time asleep was asleep and Shaila and Cindy, two students from New Jersey, were still up brushing their teeth and giggling a lot. Next morning, I got to have my first all native English speakers’ girl conversation in two weeks. In which I got to
a) Bitch about the impact of humidity on my hair. Shaila and Cindy assured me it was fine.
b) Talk about blokes what I saw/ checked out/ passed on the street. The girls agreed that there were some fine men in Montreal
c) Not have to worry about whether or not the other people could follow my English
It was great.
At breakfast I met a guy from Vancouver called Tyson. Who said he was a little ashamed of the name now, since Tyson had thrown the towel in during his fight a couple of weeks ago. I refrained from asking him whether he was ashamed of the name when Mike T was outed as a Neanderthal rapist. (See, see, I am learning to keep my mouth shut).
Tyson’s of Laotian ethnicity. His family were brought over to Canada after the Vietnam war by the Mennonite Church. Tyson called them extreme Christians. They pitched the family up in northern Manitoba, and they eventually escaped to Winnipeg and then Vancouver. He told me his dad had lived in the jungle for a number of years in Laos, so he reckoned he was involved in the war in some way. He told me that Laos had the unhappy honour of being the most bombed country in the world. I had heard that before. I wonder is it still the case after Afghanistan and Iraq.
Probably.
Tyson was driving from Vancouver to Halifax and back, via Gettysburg, with a friend who is getting married soon. They have three weeks to do the trip. He offered me a ride to Halifax – it was a pity I had my train ticket, as I would have liked to have done a road trip.
Anyways, we both ended up going for coffee to meet Loic the Stoic and spent a very pleasant hour on the terrace looking at Tyson’s photos of Manitoba and talking about wind turbines some more.
Then Loic and I climbed Mont Royal. It’s a dormant volcano in the centre of Montreal that is a big park and provides spectacular views of the city. Too hot. Too high. Great view though. Cannot wait to work on the photos.
Anyways, goodbye to Montreal, where all the women are pencil thin and all the men look like Johnny Depp, and it takes forty minutes to get a cup of crap coffee, but who cares.
I could live there, actually, I really could. I need to check it out in the winter first.
As I sat typing on the terrace of the Café de Beau Poseur, or something like that last night, a young African man approached me, holding a cigarette. I held out my lighter for him to use. He said no, could he sit down and talk to me. I said I didn’t speak French. He sat down anyway and began to speak to me in English. I said I was leaving in a minute. He brought over a full glass of wine and proceeded to drink it while telling me that he was a student in McGill University up the road and that he liked to talk to new people.
I sighed inwardly. I really didn’t want to have a broken English conversation. I was too tired after six hours walking around the city under the hot Montreal sun.
“What do you study?”
“I’m doing a PhD in wind energy in France and I am here doing an internship on Canada’s alternative energy policy.”
I get my buzz from wind turbines, I do
“Oh right.” Great, a broken English conversation with a guy who’s into wind farming. Just what I need on a hot Tuesday.
Actually, he was pretty interesting. From Cameroon originally, sent to study in France by his parents when he was fifteen. He subsequently went to university and did a degree in electrical engineering and now his passion is wind power. We talked about environmental issues for a while. I said that I was shocked at how wasteful Canadians are, particularly with paper products. I suppose it is something to do with all the trees they have, and the logging companies and the lumber companies and the paper mills and the paper product manufacturers etc, etc.
We talked wind turbines. He said the average Canadian turbine is 70 metres in diameter. He wanted to develop smaller turbines that could be used in urban areas, but Canada wasn’t interested in funding this type of research. Presumably because they have enough space to build enormous great farms without anyone complaining if an entire bog slides down a mountainside as it did in Mayo.
It started to rain then, big fat drops that were more painful than actually wet, so we decided to go to Café Chaos, a worker co-operative bar further up the street. Inside it was the usual dark, red lit, grimy wooden space. This time, one long wall was covered in cartoonish graffiti of some character whose name escapes me, but whom I had doodled all over my journals in school. You know, the guy with the big nose, peering over the wall.
Microbrews in Café Chaos
His name was Loïc. I couldn’t remember it, so after about four attempts to memorise it, I eventually linked it to stoic. Loic the Stoic. It suited him. He was very intense for his age, just twenty four, and a little morose about his chances/ its chances/ the future. Very stoical. I explained who they were to him – the Stoics - and he corrected me on one of the finer details.
Right. I’m dealing with a really smart guy here.
We talked a lot about sociology and the elitist nature of French society. About the difference between social and symbolic capital and how French power-brokers use symbolic capital to keep the poor in their place. For example, using cultural questions in exams. I don’t know how accurate this is, but I wished I had had some of this ammunition at any number of EU-related conferences I attended for dealing with patronising French delegates.
The single beer turned into three. The music in the bar moved seamlessly back and forth between The Cure and some dreadful heavy metal band. It was as if the bar staff were having an argument about the music and kept switching it on each other.
We talked about Africa a bit. He said Cameroon was very conservative and religious. It sounded just like Ireland about thirty five years ago, actually. He said that when he went home on holidays one time, his uncle the bishop came to see the returned émigré. Instead of kissing the ring, he shook his hand. There was a stunned silence in the house.
I said wait another few years till they find out about the bishop’s illegitimate children and the money he stole from the diocese to educate them.
By midnight I was exhausted and I had to make my way back up the Rue St. Denis and home, but we agreed to meet at the same café for coffee the next morning and tackle Mont Royal, the dormant volcano that rises up above Montreal. And gives it its name of course.
New Jersey girls on the town in Montreal
When I got back to the hostel, Joanne the Aussie nurse who spends most of her time asleep was asleep and Shaila and Cindy, two students from New Jersey, were still up brushing their teeth and giggling a lot. Next morning, I got to have my first all native English speakers’ girl conversation in two weeks. In which I got to
a) Bitch about the impact of humidity on my hair. Shaila and Cindy assured me it was fine.
b) Talk about blokes what I saw/ checked out/ passed on the street. The girls agreed that there were some fine men in Montreal
c) Not have to worry about whether or not the other people could follow my English
It was great.
At breakfast I met a guy from Vancouver called Tyson. Who said he was a little ashamed of the name now, since Tyson had thrown the towel in during his fight a couple of weeks ago. I refrained from asking him whether he was ashamed of the name when Mike T was outed as a Neanderthal rapist. (See, see, I am learning to keep my mouth shut).
Tyson’s of Laotian ethnicity. His family were brought over to Canada after the Vietnam war by the Mennonite Church. Tyson called them extreme Christians. They pitched the family up in northern Manitoba, and they eventually escaped to Winnipeg and then Vancouver. He told me his dad had lived in the jungle for a number of years in Laos, so he reckoned he was involved in the war in some way. He told me that Laos had the unhappy honour of being the most bombed country in the world. I had heard that before. I wonder is it still the case after Afghanistan and Iraq.
Probably.
Tyson was driving from Vancouver to Halifax and back, via Gettysburg, with a friend who is getting married soon. They have three weeks to do the trip. He offered me a ride to Halifax – it was a pity I had my train ticket, as I would have liked to have done a road trip.
Anyways, we both ended up going for coffee to meet Loic the Stoic and spent a very pleasant hour on the terrace looking at Tyson’s photos of Manitoba and talking about wind turbines some more.
Then Loic and I climbed Mont Royal. It’s a dormant volcano in the centre of Montreal that is a big park and provides spectacular views of the city. Too hot. Too high. Great view though. Cannot wait to work on the photos.
Anyways, goodbye to Montreal, where all the women are pencil thin and all the men look like Johnny Depp, and it takes forty minutes to get a cup of crap coffee, but who cares.
I could live there, actually, I really could. I need to check it out in the winter first.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Did Queenie take a wrong turn? Because she’s in New Orleans, isn’t she?
Everyone I’ve mentioned Montreal to here in Canada has told me that I would love this city because it is really like Yerp. Exactly which bit of Yerp is not always as clearly enunciated as the level to which I will love Montreal. Is it like Paris? Is it like London? Is it like Tallinn? Is it like Moscow? Is it like Rome? Is it like Ballyporeen? I ask. None of the people who assured me that Montreal was just like Yerp had ever been there, so I had my suspicions.
Having spent 28 hours here, I can now definitively state that the answer is, none of the above, and not only that, it is like nowhere I’ve ever been in Yerp. Apart from the Old City looking remarkably like Dame St. About ten years ago before they started cleaning the buildings.
True, the murmur of French all around me is reassuring in a weird way, but the locals are so ecstatic at my attempts to speak the language that I can’t possibly be in the ‘land of the people who almost wrecked Europe, as well as Canada’, according to most Canadians. Not me. I’m delighted they voted NON.
Actually, I feel like I’m in New Orleans, so I suppose it’s American style Yerp. It’s very similar. Lots of wrought iron balconies, but not as many window boxes, perhaps something to do with the long cold winter. The same long, dilapidated boulevards, superimposed onto an American grid system. The same blistering heat, and obsession with terraced coffee houses. The same jazz records playing in the background.
It’s nice, although I have already decided that I prefer Toronto. But as night falls on my second evening here, I might change my mind, because it is definitely a city that wakes up around eleven pm.
Way back in March when I collected my first Frank’s from Ian, Dermot, Mark and Lisa were in the Alliance Francaise and I told them all I was going to Canada. We talked destinations and Montreal came up. Dermot said that God Speed You! Black Emperor had a café/ bar there called Casa del Popolo and I determined then and there to add it to the musical itinerary. I found it last night, at the far end of the Boulevard St. Laurent, the main street of Montreal, which separates English speaking west from French east.
It’s a long straight street, leading up the hill towards the Mont Royal. Being the interface between two dominant cultures, it’s mostly Arab and African, with some trendy furniture shops and a lot of hookah bars. On the way, I ate in a Portuguese restaurant on Duluth.
Inside, it’s really dark. A DJ was setting up his equipment at the end of a long bar. The bar sells only microbrews, at four dollars a pop, which is really cheap for here. It’s small as well, only about the same size as the back part of The Long Hall, with the same panelled ceiling, painted bronze I think. The walls are tongue and groove wood panelled. Painted white. Dim lights hang low on chains, like in The Long Hall.
You can smoke inside. The bar has zebra print covered stools along it, and a large leopard skin lamp, which apart from ten red bulbs on a string, are the only light by which the barman pulls pints and washes glasses by hand. It’s quite Irish in a way. The bar is dark wood, with some spirit bottles sitting in a desultory fashion along a single shelf behind the bar. The barman’s English is terrible, but I manage to get a nice beer all the same.
There are a couple of tatty sofas in the bay windows and the rest of the space is taken up with a large stage and a few small wooden tables. Photos of jazz legends are on the walls, as well as two large blackboards, one outlining the food menu and the other listing the events for three months.
I went out to the terrace at the back of the pub. It’s a small enclosed courtyard, overhung with two enormous plane trees (I think). They droop over nine small aluminium tables with an ashtray placed artfully in the corner of each. Fairy lights are hung on the walls. It’s not as nice as Aileen/ Dermot/ Katharine/ Andrew’s garden. They need a bit of design input on the horticultural and lighting sides. On one wall, there is a large rectangle painted white. It is for showing movies I presume. Tonight, the trees cast shadows across it, making a show of their interaction with the wind blowing up the boulevard.
On the back wall is a large sign that says ‘Don’t talk to me like you’re my real dad’.
Upstairs on an apartment terrace, a barbeque sizzled into life and someone played Venezuelan merengue on a wheezy sound system. I moved inside because DJ Sundown was starting up. He was accompanied by his partner, Ilana. The music was very languid, lots of French stuff I had never heard before, with an English, poppy beat underlying everything. The sound system is fantastic – clear as a bell.
At ten thirty, there were eight of us in the bar. By eleven, there were forty people milling around. They were eyeing my table longingly, so I gave in gracefully and left for the long walk home to my hostel.
Queenie would like a life where she gets to go to the pub at eleven in the evening on a Monday to hear her mate’s DJ set. Is that too much to ask?
Probably.
I am only starting to realise how intertwined music is in my life. Everywhere I’ve been so far has had a really important musical connotation for me – Toronto and NXNE, Kingston and the Rev (and Neil Young’s dad was buried there the day I arrived), Montreal and Casa del Popolo, and tomorrow, Nova Scotia and the town of Springhill. And all that represents for me in terms of the music I grew up with.
I am enjoying my pilgrimage I must say.
Having spent 28 hours here, I can now definitively state that the answer is, none of the above, and not only that, it is like nowhere I’ve ever been in Yerp. Apart from the Old City looking remarkably like Dame St. About ten years ago before they started cleaning the buildings.
True, the murmur of French all around me is reassuring in a weird way, but the locals are so ecstatic at my attempts to speak the language that I can’t possibly be in the ‘land of the people who almost wrecked Europe, as well as Canada’, according to most Canadians. Not me. I’m delighted they voted NON.
Actually, I feel like I’m in New Orleans, so I suppose it’s American style Yerp. It’s very similar. Lots of wrought iron balconies, but not as many window boxes, perhaps something to do with the long cold winter. The same long, dilapidated boulevards, superimposed onto an American grid system. The same blistering heat, and obsession with terraced coffee houses. The same jazz records playing in the background.
It’s nice, although I have already decided that I prefer Toronto. But as night falls on my second evening here, I might change my mind, because it is definitely a city that wakes up around eleven pm.
Way back in March when I collected my first Frank’s from Ian, Dermot, Mark and Lisa were in the Alliance Francaise and I told them all I was going to Canada. We talked destinations and Montreal came up. Dermot said that God Speed You! Black Emperor had a café/ bar there called Casa del Popolo and I determined then and there to add it to the musical itinerary. I found it last night, at the far end of the Boulevard St. Laurent, the main street of Montreal, which separates English speaking west from French east.
It’s a long straight street, leading up the hill towards the Mont Royal. Being the interface between two dominant cultures, it’s mostly Arab and African, with some trendy furniture shops and a lot of hookah bars. On the way, I ate in a Portuguese restaurant on Duluth.
Inside, it’s really dark. A DJ was setting up his equipment at the end of a long bar. The bar sells only microbrews, at four dollars a pop, which is really cheap for here. It’s small as well, only about the same size as the back part of The Long Hall, with the same panelled ceiling, painted bronze I think. The walls are tongue and groove wood panelled. Painted white. Dim lights hang low on chains, like in The Long Hall.
You can smoke inside. The bar has zebra print covered stools along it, and a large leopard skin lamp, which apart from ten red bulbs on a string, are the only light by which the barman pulls pints and washes glasses by hand. It’s quite Irish in a way. The bar is dark wood, with some spirit bottles sitting in a desultory fashion along a single shelf behind the bar. The barman’s English is terrible, but I manage to get a nice beer all the same.
There are a couple of tatty sofas in the bay windows and the rest of the space is taken up with a large stage and a few small wooden tables. Photos of jazz legends are on the walls, as well as two large blackboards, one outlining the food menu and the other listing the events for three months.
I went out to the terrace at the back of the pub. It’s a small enclosed courtyard, overhung with two enormous plane trees (I think). They droop over nine small aluminium tables with an ashtray placed artfully in the corner of each. Fairy lights are hung on the walls. It’s not as nice as Aileen/ Dermot/ Katharine/ Andrew’s garden. They need a bit of design input on the horticultural and lighting sides. On one wall, there is a large rectangle painted white. It is for showing movies I presume. Tonight, the trees cast shadows across it, making a show of their interaction with the wind blowing up the boulevard.
On the back wall is a large sign that says ‘Don’t talk to me like you’re my real dad’.
Upstairs on an apartment terrace, a barbeque sizzled into life and someone played Venezuelan merengue on a wheezy sound system. I moved inside because DJ Sundown was starting up. He was accompanied by his partner, Ilana. The music was very languid, lots of French stuff I had never heard before, with an English, poppy beat underlying everything. The sound system is fantastic – clear as a bell.
At ten thirty, there were eight of us in the bar. By eleven, there were forty people milling around. They were eyeing my table longingly, so I gave in gracefully and left for the long walk home to my hostel.
Queenie would like a life where she gets to go to the pub at eleven in the evening on a Monday to hear her mate’s DJ set. Is that too much to ask?
Probably.
I am only starting to realise how intertwined music is in my life. Everywhere I’ve been so far has had a really important musical connotation for me – Toronto and NXNE, Kingston and the Rev (and Neil Young’s dad was buried there the day I arrived), Montreal and Casa del Popolo, and tomorrow, Nova Scotia and the town of Springhill. And all that represents for me in terms of the music I grew up with.
I am enjoying my pilgrimage I must say.
Monday, June 20, 2005
Queenie cruises 1,864 islands on the Island Queen III
It was one of those moments. Just as Queenie was wondering how many islands were in the Thousand Island archipelago, the bilingual tour guide tape blaring out of the speaker on the top deck of the boat began to explain. The Island Queen knew the Queenie’s mind before she knew it herself.
Apparently, an island in this group is defined as a visible slab of granite that has a diameter of more than six metres. As the water level in the St. Lawrence river fluctuates regularly, so too does the number of islands, but at the last count, there were 1,864 islands in the Thousand Islands group.
They are the oldest rocks in the world. Slabs of granite left here by some ancient glacier. According to Iroquois legend, Manitou came from heaven and promised the warring tribes paradise on earth if they would stop fighting. So they did and he did. But not long afterwards, the bickering started again and arrows flew, so Manitou returned to earth with a buffalo hide, into which he gathered paradise. He began to ascend with it to heaven, but as he did, the buffalo hide ripped, and little shards of paradise fell down into the St. Lawrence and became the tufts of grey and green we cruised amongst today.
The most beautiful parts are the little pine covered peninsulas that jut out of tiny, tiny islands. Looking at them, you get a sense of what it must have been like for the Indians who fished here, and for the first French explorers who came upon it. The bigger islands are all host to holiday homes of varying degrees of luxury and age. Some of the Victorian houses are nice – they range from turreted Queen Anne style, to NeoGothic piles, to plain clapboard pioneer type homes. They are all marred by modern marinas and swimming decks. I wondered where all the waste goes. Nobody could tell me. Into the river I suppose.
The day started out grey, but as we meandered among the islets and peeked into people’s summer lives, it brightened and hundreds of sailboats and other pleasure craft came out to play. There were a few jetskis. One portly gentleman in particular kept cutting across the wake of the Queen, to get a few bumps and show off. You could feel everyone on the top deck silently willing him to fall off. Or maybe it was just me. Meanwhile, you could look across at the United States and imagine hooch runners bringing whiskey over in the twenties.
Speaking of smuggling things across the border, someone told me the other day that there have been 4,000 deserters from the US army since the invasion of Iraq. Is that possible?
The cruise boat was the usual blaring, lowest common denominator type of tourist crap. Why have sky and water and birds and landscape when you can eat nachos and listen to the WaterRats, or Riverbend, or whatever the hell they were called. Even on deck there was no escape – their two piece plus Roland multi-instrumental blared out of the speakers when the tour tape was silent. I wonder whether the local fish set their watches to plunge each day when the boat passes.
The waterway is very historical. The French explorer La Salle found it, along with the Great Lakes, and then he went south and discovered the Mississippi. The French moved in and trapped for fur and traded with tribes such as the Mohawk. They were followed by the British, who bought a huge tract of land for some cloth and a gun and founded Kingston. They finally overcame French resistance at the Battle of Quebec, further north, and booted the French out of Canada.
You can see why they fought over it. It’s a very lush land, easily navigable by water, full of timber and must have been teeming with wildlife a century ago. The few pelted creatures that are left are no doubt underground, their paws over their ears, trying to escape the current tourist invasion. I know people have to make a living, but why can’t people who want to leave a light footprint be allowed to do it without having to spend lots of money?
I always think of George Orwell when I go on these type of trips. He seemed to have a utopian vision of the ‘bus to Brighton’ type trip, full of jolly working class types enjoying a bit of sing song. I always feel as I would if I would if I were Graham Greene trapped in one of these trips forever. I think I am a bit of a snob.
Okay, a total snob.
Anyways, the pilgrimage is done. I reckon that Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips must live somewhere a bit more secluded, because I certainly didn’t get the vibe here.
Never mind. I tried.
Tonight, I walked around Kingston in the moonlight and looked at the lake for a long time because I probably won’t see it again for a while, if ever. It’s very beautiful.
And for the record, it’s 183 miles long and 54 miles across.
WHICH IS NOT BIGGER THAN IRELAND.
Apparently, an island in this group is defined as a visible slab of granite that has a diameter of more than six metres. As the water level in the St. Lawrence river fluctuates regularly, so too does the number of islands, but at the last count, there were 1,864 islands in the Thousand Islands group.
They are the oldest rocks in the world. Slabs of granite left here by some ancient glacier. According to Iroquois legend, Manitou came from heaven and promised the warring tribes paradise on earth if they would stop fighting. So they did and he did. But not long afterwards, the bickering started again and arrows flew, so Manitou returned to earth with a buffalo hide, into which he gathered paradise. He began to ascend with it to heaven, but as he did, the buffalo hide ripped, and little shards of paradise fell down into the St. Lawrence and became the tufts of grey and green we cruised amongst today.
The most beautiful parts are the little pine covered peninsulas that jut out of tiny, tiny islands. Looking at them, you get a sense of what it must have been like for the Indians who fished here, and for the first French explorers who came upon it. The bigger islands are all host to holiday homes of varying degrees of luxury and age. Some of the Victorian houses are nice – they range from turreted Queen Anne style, to NeoGothic piles, to plain clapboard pioneer type homes. They are all marred by modern marinas and swimming decks. I wondered where all the waste goes. Nobody could tell me. Into the river I suppose.
The day started out grey, but as we meandered among the islets and peeked into people’s summer lives, it brightened and hundreds of sailboats and other pleasure craft came out to play. There were a few jetskis. One portly gentleman in particular kept cutting across the wake of the Queen, to get a few bumps and show off. You could feel everyone on the top deck silently willing him to fall off. Or maybe it was just me. Meanwhile, you could look across at the United States and imagine hooch runners bringing whiskey over in the twenties.
Speaking of smuggling things across the border, someone told me the other day that there have been 4,000 deserters from the US army since the invasion of Iraq. Is that possible?
The cruise boat was the usual blaring, lowest common denominator type of tourist crap. Why have sky and water and birds and landscape when you can eat nachos and listen to the WaterRats, or Riverbend, or whatever the hell they were called. Even on deck there was no escape – their two piece plus Roland multi-instrumental blared out of the speakers when the tour tape was silent. I wonder whether the local fish set their watches to plunge each day when the boat passes.
The waterway is very historical. The French explorer La Salle found it, along with the Great Lakes, and then he went south and discovered the Mississippi. The French moved in and trapped for fur and traded with tribes such as the Mohawk. They were followed by the British, who bought a huge tract of land for some cloth and a gun and founded Kingston. They finally overcame French resistance at the Battle of Quebec, further north, and booted the French out of Canada.
You can see why they fought over it. It’s a very lush land, easily navigable by water, full of timber and must have been teeming with wildlife a century ago. The few pelted creatures that are left are no doubt underground, their paws over their ears, trying to escape the current tourist invasion. I know people have to make a living, but why can’t people who want to leave a light footprint be allowed to do it without having to spend lots of money?
I always think of George Orwell when I go on these type of trips. He seemed to have a utopian vision of the ‘bus to Brighton’ type trip, full of jolly working class types enjoying a bit of sing song. I always feel as I would if I would if I were Graham Greene trapped in one of these trips forever. I think I am a bit of a snob.
Okay, a total snob.
Anyways, the pilgrimage is done. I reckon that Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips must live somewhere a bit more secluded, because I certainly didn’t get the vibe here.
Never mind. I tried.
Tonight, I walked around Kingston in the moonlight and looked at the lake for a long time because I probably won’t see it again for a while, if ever. It’s very beautiful.
And for the record, it’s 183 miles long and 54 miles across.
WHICH IS NOT BIGGER THAN IRELAND.
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Rainy days in The Sleepless Goat, Kingston, Ontario
Kingston has been very cold and wet. The term cold is relative though, it’s probably the same temperature at home. I’ve not been doing much, apart from sleeping, eating and typing. But it’s been quite pleasant and it’s a nice, laid back town with a substantial alternative lifestyle going on, side by side with the retirees and the prison officers and the university staff who seem to make up the townsfolk.
Every morning I get up and ignore Engelbert at breakfast (although he left this morning on the Moose bus with some horrendous English woman who thinks his name is Tony and who is gagging for it. I gave him a thumbs up as he left, I thought he was going to head butt me).
Where we have breakfast depends on the number of guests. If it’s busy, like this morning, we are seated in the crew messroom. If it’s quiet, we go upstairs to the officers mess. The cabins are priced according to their status. It costs $85 a night to stay in the captain’s cabin, which is an en-suite double room with a sitting room. And they felt the need to build a Radisson here.
The Alexander Henry is lovely. All creaky wood, whistling pipes and sloping floors. I want to live on a boat. Someone asked me to marry him and go and live on a boat in Vancouver last week and I said no. Maybe I should give him a ring……….
Seriously, after breakfast I go on deck for a cigarette and watch them wash the decks down and check the rigging. Then I write for a bit and head into town to the Sleepless Goat café to use the internet. The Sleepless Goat is an anarchist co-operative vegetarian restaurant that is full of the most interesting people. So I type away and listen in on conversations. There was a hilarious one last night.
Two guys and a girl were talking – I couldn’t figure out how they knew each other, but they didn’t know each other well and the two guys were jostling for position with the girl, who was scarily self-obsessed. Well, either that, or she was playing them both for complete fools. No, I think she was scarily self-obsessed.
The talk turned to their ethnicity. That’s what you do, apparently. You say, casually, ‘so, what’s your ethnicity?’ And then you get this long, rambling explanation of their background. The Asian guy asked the girl hers and it turned out her dad was Pakistani and her mother was Scots-English-Irish.
Asian guy: That’s cool. I love that actress (didn’t get the name – apparently of Pakistani ethnicity). She has a great look.
Lisa the Pakistani/Irish/English/Scots girl: Oh, that’s what my boss calls me all the time.
Other guy (who didn’t volunteer his ethnicity, being very obviously of boring European extraction) realises the Asian guy is ahead by a nose: She’s kind of wooden as an actress though, don’t you think, I prefer (didn’t get this name either).
Lisa is not sure about this, but decides to run with it: Yeah, she’s like Gwyneth Paltrow, like, so empty inside, she can be programmed. If I was a famous actress, I wouldn’t be able to play anyone but myself.
The two lads nodded seriously. I felt for them. I really did. I wanted to go over and paint a picture of the next two years of their lives if they scored Lisa the Pakistani Princess. I wanted to scare them so much they’d run away and never speak to her again. Am I being unfair, I don’t think so.
Lisa, secure in her audience’s obsequiousness at this point, went on to explain how she votes Conservative (not the done thing in the Sleepless Goat) because a) her parents, who are very rich and successful and just like, totally don’t understand her, are Liberals, b) Stephen Harpur (leader of the Conservatives, very stiff Al Gore type on a drive to be likeable) is like committed, and c) like, she has more respect for Hitler than for that guy Eichmann, you know, the Nazi who said he did it because he was told to, and voting Liberal is just, you know, being told what to do.
The Asian guy, who had been trying to tell Lisa that she had the wrong Nazi (I think he was right and she was actually talking about Speer rather than Eichmann) to no avail (I don’t think Lisa does getting it assways), gave up in complete confusion at this stage. Looking around, he spotted my shoulders shaking behind my screen and realised that coffee was coming down my nose because I was enjoying the earwigging so much. So he moved them onto another, safer subject.
Bah.
In the afternoon, I generally do some touristy thing. There are a lot of museums here and an old fort and boat trips on the lake. It’s all very tame, but nice.
In the evening, I go out to eat and generally meet up with someone or hook up with Caelen’s dad. I go to bed early, because I’ll be in Montreal next week and then Halifax and I won’t get much sleep because I’ll be hostelling again and will have to share horrible rooms with people who rustle plastic bags at three in the morning.
I am becoming an oldarse I think.
This afternoon I am going on a cruise to see the Thousand Islands, or Manitouana as the Indians called it, which means Garden of the Great Spirit. And yes, it is where the name of the salad dressing came from. The guy who owned the Waldorf Astoria came up with it in his summer home on one of the islands. I tried to go on the cruise yesterday, but it was raining so much I was the only passenger. So they gave me my money back. It’s stopped raining today, so I should be okay.
And now I am officially up to date. Hooray.
As to my ethnicity, I’ve been thinking about this. I think it’s a bit boring to say I’m Irish. So I was thinking about saying, well I’m Scots/ Northern/ Planter Irish on my dad’s side, which is where I get the freckles and the temper from, and my mother’s an O’Neill, so I reckon I’m probably half Tuatha de Danaan on her side. Or maybe some Milesian – that would account for the dark hair.
Whaddya think?
Every morning I get up and ignore Engelbert at breakfast (although he left this morning on the Moose bus with some horrendous English woman who thinks his name is Tony and who is gagging for it. I gave him a thumbs up as he left, I thought he was going to head butt me).
Where we have breakfast depends on the number of guests. If it’s busy, like this morning, we are seated in the crew messroom. If it’s quiet, we go upstairs to the officers mess. The cabins are priced according to their status. It costs $85 a night to stay in the captain’s cabin, which is an en-suite double room with a sitting room. And they felt the need to build a Radisson here.
The Alexander Henry is lovely. All creaky wood, whistling pipes and sloping floors. I want to live on a boat. Someone asked me to marry him and go and live on a boat in Vancouver last week and I said no. Maybe I should give him a ring……….
Seriously, after breakfast I go on deck for a cigarette and watch them wash the decks down and check the rigging. Then I write for a bit and head into town to the Sleepless Goat café to use the internet. The Sleepless Goat is an anarchist co-operative vegetarian restaurant that is full of the most interesting people. So I type away and listen in on conversations. There was a hilarious one last night.
Two guys and a girl were talking – I couldn’t figure out how they knew each other, but they didn’t know each other well and the two guys were jostling for position with the girl, who was scarily self-obsessed. Well, either that, or she was playing them both for complete fools. No, I think she was scarily self-obsessed.
The talk turned to their ethnicity. That’s what you do, apparently. You say, casually, ‘so, what’s your ethnicity?’ And then you get this long, rambling explanation of their background. The Asian guy asked the girl hers and it turned out her dad was Pakistani and her mother was Scots-English-Irish.
Asian guy: That’s cool. I love that actress (didn’t get the name – apparently of Pakistani ethnicity). She has a great look.
Lisa the Pakistani/Irish/English/Scots girl: Oh, that’s what my boss calls me all the time.
Other guy (who didn’t volunteer his ethnicity, being very obviously of boring European extraction) realises the Asian guy is ahead by a nose: She’s kind of wooden as an actress though, don’t you think, I prefer (didn’t get this name either).
Lisa is not sure about this, but decides to run with it: Yeah, she’s like Gwyneth Paltrow, like, so empty inside, she can be programmed. If I was a famous actress, I wouldn’t be able to play anyone but myself.
The two lads nodded seriously. I felt for them. I really did. I wanted to go over and paint a picture of the next two years of their lives if they scored Lisa the Pakistani Princess. I wanted to scare them so much they’d run away and never speak to her again. Am I being unfair, I don’t think so.
Lisa, secure in her audience’s obsequiousness at this point, went on to explain how she votes Conservative (not the done thing in the Sleepless Goat) because a) her parents, who are very rich and successful and just like, totally don’t understand her, are Liberals, b) Stephen Harpur (leader of the Conservatives, very stiff Al Gore type on a drive to be likeable) is like committed, and c) like, she has more respect for Hitler than for that guy Eichmann, you know, the Nazi who said he did it because he was told to, and voting Liberal is just, you know, being told what to do.
The Asian guy, who had been trying to tell Lisa that she had the wrong Nazi (I think he was right and she was actually talking about Speer rather than Eichmann) to no avail (I don’t think Lisa does getting it assways), gave up in complete confusion at this stage. Looking around, he spotted my shoulders shaking behind my screen and realised that coffee was coming down my nose because I was enjoying the earwigging so much. So he moved them onto another, safer subject.
Bah.
In the afternoon, I generally do some touristy thing. There are a lot of museums here and an old fort and boat trips on the lake. It’s all very tame, but nice.
In the evening, I go out to eat and generally meet up with someone or hook up with Caelen’s dad. I go to bed early, because I’ll be in Montreal next week and then Halifax and I won’t get much sleep because I’ll be hostelling again and will have to share horrible rooms with people who rustle plastic bags at three in the morning.
I am becoming an oldarse I think.
This afternoon I am going on a cruise to see the Thousand Islands, or Manitouana as the Indians called it, which means Garden of the Great Spirit. And yes, it is where the name of the salad dressing came from. The guy who owned the Waldorf Astoria came up with it in his summer home on one of the islands. I tried to go on the cruise yesterday, but it was raining so much I was the only passenger. So they gave me my money back. It’s stopped raining today, so I should be okay.
And now I am officially up to date. Hooray.
As to my ethnicity, I’ve been thinking about this. I think it’s a bit boring to say I’m Irish. So I was thinking about saying, well I’m Scots/ Northern/ Planter Irish on my dad’s side, which is where I get the freckles and the temper from, and my mother’s an O’Neill, so I reckon I’m probably half Tuatha de Danaan on her side. Or maybe some Milesian – that would account for the dark hair.
Whaddya think?
Bleary-eyed backpacker bussing it east
Wednesday 15th was exciting because Queenie and Percy were heading east. At last! A bit of travel. Queenie packed the bags bright and early and lugged them downstairs. Hopefully the next hostel would have a lift (although as Queenie already knew the next hostel was a decommissioned ice-breaker that was unlikely).
The big bag is a pain. Of course, those of you who have been reading Percy’s Depressed from the beginning will have guessed that it of course contains Percy, and all his armour and weaponry, and is very heavy as a result. But when people comment on the size of it – and they always do – Queenie has to pretend she brought a lot of clothes and camping gear. And this makes her look like a twat, which she doesn’t like.
Never mind. One of the advantages of lugging the Big Bertha Bag from Hell around Canada is that random men clamour to carry it for her, to prove how BIG AND STRONG they are.
Men are simple creatures, really. Simple, but adorable. Well, apart from Austrians. But more of that anon.
Anyway, due to the kindness of several random, big, strong, powerful, muscular men, Queenie and Percy made it onto the Montreal bus and headed off to Kingston, Ontario for a few days R and R and a chance to meet Caelen’s dad. Caelen from Springtown, not Caelen from Phibsboro.
The countryside wasn’t terribly interesting. Mostly it was very like home. Lots of pastureland with hedgerow separating big pasture fields. Then we passed through some meadowland, complete with flowers, which was fantastic. You rarely see that in Ireland now, it’s all been pesticided away, hasn’t it. It made Queenie think of that great project on Clare Island, to gather wild flower seeds and sell them. Maybe we should be buying them for our gardens as it is a valid project in more ways than one.
Finally, we passed through some wooded areas, but they looked farmed rather than natural and before long we hit Kingston.
First Capital Day – Queenie stands for God Save the (other) Queen
Queenie arrived in Kingston on one of its many holidays – First Capital Day – which celebrates the fact that Kingston was the capital of Canada for three years. Before they moved it inland to Ottawa. (Lakefront Canadians talk about the great lakes like they’re some kind of ocean. Which I suppose they are, considering that L. Ontario is bigger than Ireland). Kingston has a lovely old English feel to it as a result, its old centre, today’s downtown, meanders along the lakefront. There are lots of lovely Victorian clapboard houses and brick villas, and a substantial city hall and cathedral. Like its Irish namesake though, the waterfront is being desecrated by modernity, and there are a couple of monstrous high rises poking up through the vista, most noticeably a horrible Radisson Hotel. Boo hiss, Radisson.
Anyways, Kingston today is famous for a number of things, apart from being the First Capital. It is a retirement centre for Canadians. It is surrounded by five penitentiaries. It hosts some class of a base or an army training centre. You can’t smoke anywhere in Kingston apart from on the street. As a result, there are a lot of burly men with crew cuts and luxurious moustaches walking around downtown, smoking.
Queenie walked to the City Hall and Memorial Park and headed slap bang into a parade of cadet brass bands. And people walking around in Victorian costume. It was like a mini Vintage Week, without the old cars. A real army officer was overseeing the proceedings and we all clapped dutifully when ordered. I even stood for God save the Queen. A tv cameraman sitting near me commiserated with me – coming all the way to Canada to have to stand for the oppressor’s anthem. I didn’t have the heart to tell him we do it at rugby internationals all the time.
The bands were pretty good, even though the MC kept messing up the marching orders and causing them to bump into each other. One of them played ABBA and The House of the Rising Sun.
Being hit on by other backpackers – oh god I’d forgotten this bit!
Afterwards, I headed back to my lodgings, which are in the Alexander Henry, a decommissioned Coast Guard ice cutter. I’m staying in Cabin 19, used by junior seamen. I have the cabin to myself, oh bliss. There are two bunks, an iron box that can be used as a wardrobe, a small sink with orders not to drink the water from the tap. And a porthole. The cabin is wood-panelled and hasn’t been updated since the sixties I’d say. Although it is a little musty it is lovely. Really cosy. The ship is managed by the local maritime museum and there is a day manager, who is as daft as a brush, and several local teenagers who are the ‘hostesses’ and who stay on board overnight to make sure the backpackers don’t set fire to the place. And let us in after eleven.
There’s a weird system of keys where we don’t get a room key, but they will come and lock or unlock your door as and when you want. Which is really annoying, but I’m sure there’s some Canadian logic to it. I eventually figured out how to lock the door from the inside but it took a while, which is why I allowed the following incident to occur.
Queenie forgot that when she goes abroad she gets hit on by wankers ALL THE TIME. I’m okay now, a week into it, I have the stern look, the piss off hand gesture and the ‘Idon’twishtohaveaconversationwithyouthankyouverymuchallthesame’ tone in place, and when I was being pestered by a drunk US Marine sniper sergeant – who wanted to tell me all about FREEDOM – in the pub last night, I got rid of him in about ten minutes.
Honey, I got all the FREEDOM I need, thanks all the same.
But I forgot about other backpackers. They’re the worst. When I was in Toronto, I used to hang out in the hostel with an Irish Canadian bloke and a Scottish bloke, who were very nice, but who used to take turns to hit on me in a very desultory manner. Which is just annoying, because you know they are thinking ‘two arms, two legs, female, why the hell not’. Which is a little insulting I find. Or maybe I’m just the fussiest bird on the planet.
Both probably.
Anyways, they shared their room with a very strange Austrian roommate, with an unpronounceable name, which seemed to roughly translate into Engelbert. So that’s what we’ll call him.
Engelbert used to get drunk every night in that maudlin, central European way. You know, where they suddenly realise that the world is a terrible place and we should all just kill ourselves. Or at the very least, you should let them cry on your shoulder for a little bit. He was tolerable when the others were there.
I was sitting outside the Alex Henry having a smoke when the Moose bus pulled up and the Moose heads trundled up the gang plank and who should be among them only Engelbert the Depressed himself. So we did the usual pretend surprise that the other person should be in the same part of the backpacker loop and chatted a bit and then agreed to have a beer later. Which we did. One. ONE FLIPPIN’ CAN OF BEER. During which we discussed what we thought of Canada (To give him his due, he came up with the best description of it I have heard yet, which is that it is a kind of Nordic Australia). And then I departed, not wanting to have to deal with a drunk Engelbert on my own. I went to bed and straight to sleep because I was really exhausted after Toronto.
But a little voice in the back of my head said “Queenie, you don’t seem to be able to lock this door from the inside, so put your backpack up against it.” Because just as we were going inside to our cabins, Engelbert the Depressed had grabbed my bare foot ‘to check it wasn’t too cold’.
Yeah.
I woke up about half an hour later to someone knocking on the door. I held my breath, hoping he’d go away. To my utter amazement, he opened the door. The backpack held it closed, thank goodness. To my complete horror, he pushed hard, got the door open and stuck his head in. To be greeted by my head (I was sleeping in the top bunk).
What do you want? No you can’t come in. Get the fuck out of my room. Goodnight. SLAM. I think I caught his head in the door. I hope I did anyways.
I rolled around my bunk howling with laughter. There were two Aussies sleeping in the next cabin. The knocking had woken them up. They were howling with laughter.
Splutter, choke, chuckle “You alright, girl? You need some help?” Howl………
“No, I’m grand.” Snortle…………..
After a while I calmed down and did that usual female thing of ‘did I over-react?’ I decided I’d decide when I met him over breakfast.
Next morning, we played tag as I tried to get into the dining room ahead of him and he lurked in the men’s washrooms, which were across from my cabin. He won. I got in first, but he legged it in after me. I studied the coffee machine for a long time, until he sat down. He busied himself with the toaster. After a while I got pissed off with all the footling, so I just eyeballed him. And do you know what he said to me?
Did you sleep well?
Did I sleep well? Did I sleep well?
I SLEPT FINE UNTIL YOU BROKE INTO MY ROOM, YOU PERVERT!
He didn’t talk to me again after that. And I figured out how to lock the door from the inside.
Sigh.
The big bag is a pain. Of course, those of you who have been reading Percy’s Depressed from the beginning will have guessed that it of course contains Percy, and all his armour and weaponry, and is very heavy as a result. But when people comment on the size of it – and they always do – Queenie has to pretend she brought a lot of clothes and camping gear. And this makes her look like a twat, which she doesn’t like.
Never mind. One of the advantages of lugging the Big Bertha Bag from Hell around Canada is that random men clamour to carry it for her, to prove how BIG AND STRONG they are.
Men are simple creatures, really. Simple, but adorable. Well, apart from Austrians. But more of that anon.
Anyway, due to the kindness of several random, big, strong, powerful, muscular men, Queenie and Percy made it onto the Montreal bus and headed off to Kingston, Ontario for a few days R and R and a chance to meet Caelen’s dad. Caelen from Springtown, not Caelen from Phibsboro.
The countryside wasn’t terribly interesting. Mostly it was very like home. Lots of pastureland with hedgerow separating big pasture fields. Then we passed through some meadowland, complete with flowers, which was fantastic. You rarely see that in Ireland now, it’s all been pesticided away, hasn’t it. It made Queenie think of that great project on Clare Island, to gather wild flower seeds and sell them. Maybe we should be buying them for our gardens as it is a valid project in more ways than one.
Finally, we passed through some wooded areas, but they looked farmed rather than natural and before long we hit Kingston.
First Capital Day – Queenie stands for God Save the (other) Queen
Queenie arrived in Kingston on one of its many holidays – First Capital Day – which celebrates the fact that Kingston was the capital of Canada for three years. Before they moved it inland to Ottawa. (Lakefront Canadians talk about the great lakes like they’re some kind of ocean. Which I suppose they are, considering that L. Ontario is bigger than Ireland). Kingston has a lovely old English feel to it as a result, its old centre, today’s downtown, meanders along the lakefront. There are lots of lovely Victorian clapboard houses and brick villas, and a substantial city hall and cathedral. Like its Irish namesake though, the waterfront is being desecrated by modernity, and there are a couple of monstrous high rises poking up through the vista, most noticeably a horrible Radisson Hotel. Boo hiss, Radisson.
Anyways, Kingston today is famous for a number of things, apart from being the First Capital. It is a retirement centre for Canadians. It is surrounded by five penitentiaries. It hosts some class of a base or an army training centre. You can’t smoke anywhere in Kingston apart from on the street. As a result, there are a lot of burly men with crew cuts and luxurious moustaches walking around downtown, smoking.
Queenie walked to the City Hall and Memorial Park and headed slap bang into a parade of cadet brass bands. And people walking around in Victorian costume. It was like a mini Vintage Week, without the old cars. A real army officer was overseeing the proceedings and we all clapped dutifully when ordered. I even stood for God save the Queen. A tv cameraman sitting near me commiserated with me – coming all the way to Canada to have to stand for the oppressor’s anthem. I didn’t have the heart to tell him we do it at rugby internationals all the time.
The bands were pretty good, even though the MC kept messing up the marching orders and causing them to bump into each other. One of them played ABBA and The House of the Rising Sun.
Being hit on by other backpackers – oh god I’d forgotten this bit!
Afterwards, I headed back to my lodgings, which are in the Alexander Henry, a decommissioned Coast Guard ice cutter. I’m staying in Cabin 19, used by junior seamen. I have the cabin to myself, oh bliss. There are two bunks, an iron box that can be used as a wardrobe, a small sink with orders not to drink the water from the tap. And a porthole. The cabin is wood-panelled and hasn’t been updated since the sixties I’d say. Although it is a little musty it is lovely. Really cosy. The ship is managed by the local maritime museum and there is a day manager, who is as daft as a brush, and several local teenagers who are the ‘hostesses’ and who stay on board overnight to make sure the backpackers don’t set fire to the place. And let us in after eleven.
There’s a weird system of keys where we don’t get a room key, but they will come and lock or unlock your door as and when you want. Which is really annoying, but I’m sure there’s some Canadian logic to it. I eventually figured out how to lock the door from the inside but it took a while, which is why I allowed the following incident to occur.
Queenie forgot that when she goes abroad she gets hit on by wankers ALL THE TIME. I’m okay now, a week into it, I have the stern look, the piss off hand gesture and the ‘Idon’twishtohaveaconversationwithyouthankyouverymuchallthesame’ tone in place, and when I was being pestered by a drunk US Marine sniper sergeant – who wanted to tell me all about FREEDOM – in the pub last night, I got rid of him in about ten minutes.
Honey, I got all the FREEDOM I need, thanks all the same.
But I forgot about other backpackers. They’re the worst. When I was in Toronto, I used to hang out in the hostel with an Irish Canadian bloke and a Scottish bloke, who were very nice, but who used to take turns to hit on me in a very desultory manner. Which is just annoying, because you know they are thinking ‘two arms, two legs, female, why the hell not’. Which is a little insulting I find. Or maybe I’m just the fussiest bird on the planet.
Both probably.
Anyways, they shared their room with a very strange Austrian roommate, with an unpronounceable name, which seemed to roughly translate into Engelbert. So that’s what we’ll call him.
Engelbert used to get drunk every night in that maudlin, central European way. You know, where they suddenly realise that the world is a terrible place and we should all just kill ourselves. Or at the very least, you should let them cry on your shoulder for a little bit. He was tolerable when the others were there.
I was sitting outside the Alex Henry having a smoke when the Moose bus pulled up and the Moose heads trundled up the gang plank and who should be among them only Engelbert the Depressed himself. So we did the usual pretend surprise that the other person should be in the same part of the backpacker loop and chatted a bit and then agreed to have a beer later. Which we did. One. ONE FLIPPIN’ CAN OF BEER. During which we discussed what we thought of Canada (To give him his due, he came up with the best description of it I have heard yet, which is that it is a kind of Nordic Australia). And then I departed, not wanting to have to deal with a drunk Engelbert on my own. I went to bed and straight to sleep because I was really exhausted after Toronto.
But a little voice in the back of my head said “Queenie, you don’t seem to be able to lock this door from the inside, so put your backpack up against it.” Because just as we were going inside to our cabins, Engelbert the Depressed had grabbed my bare foot ‘to check it wasn’t too cold’.
Yeah.
I woke up about half an hour later to someone knocking on the door. I held my breath, hoping he’d go away. To my utter amazement, he opened the door. The backpack held it closed, thank goodness. To my complete horror, he pushed hard, got the door open and stuck his head in. To be greeted by my head (I was sleeping in the top bunk).
What do you want? No you can’t come in. Get the fuck out of my room. Goodnight. SLAM. I think I caught his head in the door. I hope I did anyways.
I rolled around my bunk howling with laughter. There were two Aussies sleeping in the next cabin. The knocking had woken them up. They were howling with laughter.
Splutter, choke, chuckle “You alright, girl? You need some help?” Howl………
“No, I’m grand.” Snortle…………..
After a while I calmed down and did that usual female thing of ‘did I over-react?’ I decided I’d decide when I met him over breakfast.
Next morning, we played tag as I tried to get into the dining room ahead of him and he lurked in the men’s washrooms, which were across from my cabin. He won. I got in first, but he legged it in after me. I studied the coffee machine for a long time, until he sat down. He busied himself with the toaster. After a while I got pissed off with all the footling, so I just eyeballed him. And do you know what he said to me?
Did you sleep well?
Did I sleep well? Did I sleep well?
I SLEPT FINE UNTIL YOU BROKE INTO MY ROOM, YOU PERVERT!
He didn’t talk to me again after that. And I figured out how to lock the door from the inside.
Sigh.
Toronto and Niagara: From Hogtown to Tacksville
Well, boys and girls, Queenie’s been in Canada a week now. And she’s not really landed yet I think. Although she came to earth with a thud of exhaustion yesterday and was tucked up in her berth in Cabin 19 of the Alexander Henry at 9pm Canadian last night. But that’s starting at the end, when I should be starting at the beginning.
Global Village Backpackers Hostel of Heat and Filth
Another post has dealt with NXNE so I won’t retread that worn path, except to say it was great and I’m glad I did it, for more than one reason. Volunteering is really important in Canada. When I went to my orientation session with SWAP, the Canuck USIT, the woman briefing us stressed it and suggested that if people didn’t have any experience, to be sure to make up some voluntary activity to put on their resume. Queenie, sitting there bleary-eyed after two days work and two nights partying, was more than a little pissed off with this attitude. After all, she had taken it upon herself to do this, while the other Irish at the briefing were nursing sore heads achieved with the minimum of effort – i.e. none of them had left the hostel bar yet.
But enough of the bitching. Queenie has a good ten years on most of the others, who are only over for the summer and will be spending long hours bussing tables and cleaning offices and are due a couple of nights off at the beginning.
The orientation session was alright, although it was totally focused on Irish students working in Toronto for the summer, and had no information for grown ups wishing to use their travel and work visa to travel and work. However, they gave me a contact name in Halifax before I left. And sold me a cell phone. Which they assured me would work across Canada.
WELL IT DOESN’T BLOODY WORK IN KINGSTON, WHICH IS A CITY IN ONTARIO, LADS.
I shall complain in the Montreal office when I get there.
After the session, Queenie went back to the hostel of heat. Global Village Backpackers is truly the second circle of hell. Two hundred plus smelly backpackers stuffed into an airless Victorian mansion with the scariest health and safety plan this girl has ever seen. Talking to Andy the engineer from Inverness one night didn’t help either. He wasn’t too pleased about being on the top floor in case of fire. And the dirt of the place!! There are people living in this kip. I couldn’t believe it. That afternoon, I was trying to clear a space on the floor of my room to repack my bag and an official-looking guy walked in and asked had I seen the cleaning staff. So I snorted loudly and exclaimed “You have cleaning staff here?” The room was done every day after that.
The following day, I was taking a leak when I realised my hair was getting wet. I looked up, and the second floor bathroom was about to dump its waterload onto me. I legged it downstairs to tell them wanting a clean bathroom on the first floor didn’t mean they had to flood the second floor bathroom but thanks for the effort anyways. I think they thought I was a bit mad. But I was just hot.
Having said that, it was dirt cheap (hur, hur). Only twenty dollars a night and cheap breakfast, free internet (if you had a wireless enabled laptop) and an open air bar that hosted Irish SWAPPERs, hosts of Australian pissheads, the Glasgow University football team, assorted Asian visa applicants and a few backpackers on any given night. They had a fantastic marketing strategy for the bar. The bar was outside and therefore reasonably cool. The hostel was inside and not air-conditioned, and therefore as hot as hell. Ergo, everyone stayed in the bar as long as possible. I tried not too, as the drunkenness invariably resulted in some antipodean couple stripping off to the delight of the Celts/ Picts/ Scallies, who could hold their drink a bit better and wouldn’t be caught dead doing said strip. I saw more Australian dangly bits than I ever dreamed I would. I felt very old.
Hogtown in all its glory
Queenie never found out why Toronto is called Hogtown. I’m sure someone else somewhere in Canada will tell her. She was a bit reticent about asking locals, in case it was something really rude. It’s a great city. It streams along the banks of Lake Ontario, and stretches north for miles. Downtown is quite small. There are clusters of skyscrapers, but it has none of the impact of New York or even London. However, there are lots of varying districts radiating out from the financial district, each of which has its own charm. I was in the hippy west side, around Queen St. and Kensington, which became more run down as you walked west, but was full of second hand clothes and book shops, art galleries, strange nightclubs, oceans of shops selling bolts of exotic cloth, tattoo parlours, jewellery shops, quirky furniture showrooms and ubiquitous coffee houses. It’s what Temple Bar should be. All the ladyeez I know would be well happy with two days shopping here – so cheap.
Canadians love their coffee. They all walk around with their coffee cups all day. And yet, they are still chilled. If Irish people did the same we’d be climbing the walls. And they don’t even seem to be obsessed with decaf, the way Americans are. God only knows how horizontal they’d be if they didn’t have coffee.
I found a little restaurant called Java House a bit down Queen St., away from the hostel, and ate there quite a lot. It was owned by a burly Italian, who sat at a table by himself all day drinking espresso, smoking really pungent cigars, and ordering the Asian waitresses around. It had a great patio that was frequented by Goths and punks so I could spend hours surreptitiously examining their tattoos and piercings.
I spent a lot of time just walking around the city, getting my bearings and taking photos. I really love the CN Tower. I felt its presence all the time. Suddenly I’d get a feeling and I’d look up and there it would be, hovering over me from some strange angle. You never got lost with it. I suppose that’s what the Spire was supposed to do in Dublin. It’s not tall enough, unfortunately.
On Monday evening, I was down at the Harbourfront, looking at the really posh condos THAT ARE STILL CHEAPER THAN MY APARTMENT, when lightening flashed, thunder clapped one-two-three and the skies opened and bucketed down on me. I ran and ran, looking for shelter. It was so exhilarating – it was the first time I felt I was away – that something was happening to me and nobody else knew. Or cared.
I spent a bit of time in Chinatown as well, which runs along Spadina Ave., never having experienced a Chinatown before, with all the really exotic spicy smells and fantastic restaurants and delis. This is the first time I’ve been able to speak with people who have an Asian background, as most of those living in Dublin are only learning English. Generally, they seem to be a bit more upfront than us Europeans, who tend to crabulate around issues. Or maybe it’s not an Asian thing, maybe it’s a Toronto thing. Or a big city thing.
I really hope I didn’t wander around Toronto for a week with my mouth open like some Irish gobdaw. I have no idea whether I did or not, and everyone was so polite, I’m sure they wouldn’t have said. But if anyone ever tells me that Dublin is diverse again, I’ll knock them over the head and put them on a plane to Vancouver, which everyone tells me is even more diverse than Toronto.
Another thing I noticed was the propensity of everyone I met to take my questions at complete face value (which was correct) and launch into a long explanation of whatever it is I had been enquiring about. They sure liked to talk about themselves. Even more than me, boys and girls, yes, the unthinkable happened a couple of times and Queenie couldn’t get a word in edgeways.
THUD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Niagara Falls, or Horseshoe Falls, Niagara, if you’re being pedantic
I got the Moose bus to Niagara. The Moose bus is the backpacker bus. There are Moose buses all over Canada. You book a Moose loop of six or seven stops (eg Toronto – Montreal – Quebec – Toronto) and they take you to out of the way places and ensure you have a cheap bed for the night. You can stay in one spot for a few nights if you like, so it’s not as confining as a tour. It’s a good system. They also do one day tours to famous spots. Which is why Queenie, Jeremy from Bristol, Tom from North London (which turned out to be Hertfordshire) and three Mexicans – Sonja, Carlos and Hugo – all sat on the Moose minibus and headed off to Niagara for the day.
Jeremy from Bristol had taken a nine month sabbatical from his job in the Golden Pages, because he had met all his targets, and was doing Canada, USA, South America, Vietnam, Cambodia, China and India.
Attaboy.
Tom from North London had been in Canada for five weeks. He had come east from Vancouver and was on his way home. He was a physicist and was about to start working for the government on a new job. He was very diffident at the beginning, so Queenie decided he was a spy or had been in the army or something. Mainly because of the diffidence, but also, he knew about random things like:
- How long a drop it takes a parachute to open
- How big a spot you need for a helicopter to land
- How to stop a car from aquaplaning
That is not to say that Myles or William or Ivan or indeed any physicist, wouldn’t know all these things (not least because they know everything), but there was something a bit muscular about him that was not your average physicist (sorry guys). I was just thinking about checking him out actually, when he committed political hari kiri by saying, ‘yes, we’re all from the UK aren’t we’, to which I responded with an ‘I’m from an independent republic I think you’ll find’, much to Jeremy from Bristol’s delight. Poor bloke turned round to face the road and didn’t talk again for a good hour. And I decided he was definitely in the Queen’s service. The other queen don’t you know. Although I wouldn’t have minded…
Stoppit!!!
Faced with two reasonably diffident Brits, after the rigours of almost a week of Torontian chatterboxes, was too wonderful an opportunity for Queenie to miss, so she talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and…………. You get the picture. Jeremy from Bristol didn’t seem to mind. Neither did the back of Tom from North London’s neck. Which was very tanned and had a little mole on the left side.
The Mexicans didn’t speak much English. When we got to Niagara we lost them. Brian the Moose guy, of whom I will think every time I use the word laconic, like forever, so tall and laid back was he, made us walk around for an hour looking for them. We decided they’d skipped across to the States, in an interesting spin on Mexican border hopping. In fact, we were outrageously racially stereotyping them as we searched for them in the heat. But it was very hot and we were searching for a good hour. Their bags were still in the Moose bus. I nearly convinced Brian they were stuffed with coke. Then we found them, waiting for us in the wrong place.
We all headed down to the Maid of the Mist, the boat that brings you up to within spitting distance of the falls. Tom had thawed out a bit at that stage, so we even got a smile when Jeremy put his blue plastic poncho on assways, with his head poking out through the left sleeve. The whole journey was a bit of an anti-climax. I had more fun taking pictures of the blue-poncho-people than actually looking into the waterfall, which has so much spray that you can’t really see anything.
Interesting fact: three quarters of the water flowing over Niagara is diverted, in order to protect the soft limestone of the falls from eroding too fast. So it is four times more powerful than we see. Which is pretty damned powerful.
Then we went to the Inniskillen Ice Winery. Did you know that ice wine is $80 a bottle? Queenie suffered from complete mortification as she remembered that someone she knows very generously gave her a bottle of ice wine a few years ago and she had no idea that it cost that much. Erm, sorry guys.
Back into Niagara for dinner and the lights. Being with two English blokes I ended up going for an Indian. Quel surprise. One of the interesting things about travel is that you lose some of your stereotypes, mainly the ones you read about and didn’t actually know. And have the rest reinforced – you know, the ones about your European neighbours mostly.
Niagara is tacksville. Honeymoon capital of the world. It’s like a mini-Vegas. I imagine, not having been to Vegas. Truly horrendous. We hung around till nine when they lit the falls up with green, pink and blue lights. It was like watching an elephant put on a frilly apron to amuse the circus kids. I felt bad until the skies opened again and it thundered and flashed and spilled rain and totally spoiled the effect the tourist board wanted.
Mama Gaia knows best.
Friday, June 10, 2005
Canadian Moosak Slam – North by North East 2005
The brochure billed it as ‘an awesome, three night, club hopping frenzy as 31 clubs showcase over 400 of the best new artists from Canada, the USA and around the world’. The brochure neglected to mention that it would take place in a Toronto heatwave, which resulted in sweat dripping off the walls, the artists, the audiences, and even the people out smoking on the streets.
The journey is the important part of going anywhere they say. I think this saying was invented before air travel. Which is boring and uncomfortable unless you’re rich. But this time I sort of lucked out. Air Canada flight AC 857 I love you! Why? Because you gave me seat 31C. First time ever. The nice seat beside the emergency exit on the aisle. Got the screwy African bloke who demanded whiskey and shouted at the stewardesses as well. Mixed blessings. But iPods are great, you can just stare into space and pretend you can’t hear anything.
Managed to sleeo on the plane and also finally read A Wild Sheep Chase, by Haruki Murakami, which is an amazing meditation on power and its impact on the soul. I think. It’s so hard to know with Murakami. He did a little bit of sitting in the deep black well this time as well, a recurring motif with him.
Got the bags back, the wheel on the big one is bust, which is a big problem. Shared a taxi downtown with some nasty business man going to the Hilton, but got ten dollars off from the Sikh taxi man for rolling my eyes at the other guy’s rudeness.
A quick check-in to the hostel and then over to the Holiday Inn to start my first shift working on NXNE. I was put doing the goodie bags. Everyone was a bit stand offish at the beginning, but when we broke for pizza and coke, the ice broke as well. It is truly true that everyone feels uncomfortable at a party, and that should make you feel comfortable. Then I produced the bottle of whiskey for MC and suddenly I was in. Whisked off to the pre-festival party, which was held in an old chapel a few blocks from the hotel. Ryan and Max were deputised to look after me. Ryan is a long-haired indie kid who looks like a character in an offbeat, quirky indie movie. Predictably enough he turned out to be an actor. Max is a tall, quiet guy who runs his own internet advertising company and spent the evening trying to get me to drink shots of some weird German cough medicine. Because I’m Irish and I should, apparently. Ended up standing in the garden smoking. Same same wherever you go. Only difference is it’s much warmer over here.
The Irish band Sundogs turned up. Plastered. They were very funny. They’re in the same hostel as me.
The hostel is hot, hot, hot. No air-conditioning and really noisy fans all night so it’s very difficult to sleep. I’m sharing with five other women. The room is tiny, with six bunkbeds and oceans of bags, clothes, shoes, make up, toiletries, towels and Rough Guides strewn across the floor. There is a chair that keeps getting in the way, so someone puts it up against my bunk every night. Then I arrive in at four am and fall over it and wake everyone up. The tension is building slowly.
Artist Registration – where do they get their names from?
Working on the festival conference for three days meant access to the air-conditioned luxury of the Holiday Inn on King St. West. The other festival taking place there at the time was a Fame and Beauty conference, populated by buff, tanned, blonde, spectacularly muscular body builders. And their totebag and waterbottle-laden boyfriends. An interesting juxtaposition to the rag tag band of rappers, rockers, hip hoppers, songsters and industry heads that milled in and out of the conference panels and celebrity interviews.
I was put on Artist Registration, partnered with a chick called Bree. No resemblance personalitywise to the Housewife. She was more of a Lynette. Before she got married and had the kids. All ideas, ambition and a good sense of humour. Lots of Brees around though. Too many leaders and not enough troops. Always the way with volunteerism of course. Thruppence looking down on tuppence ha’penny as we would say in Springtown.
We opened at twelve pm and I was really surprised to see a huge queue forming which went on all day. What happened to the rock and roll lifestyle? To partying all night and sleeping all day? Is that why the rest of us get no sleep anymore. (Queenie’s had less than five hours sleep for ten nights on the trot now and she’s getting a little cranky. She left her camera on the bus today and just deleted this entire article and is writing it again.)
Anyways, the artists were mostly very polite and nice and some were just downright excited to be in Toronto. The heatwave was only gearing up at that stage. Only one or two tossers. We had a lot of fun with the names. Bands names have always mystified me anyway – where do they get them from? But in this context, where we had to ask them their band name and then find a manilla envelope containing their badges, in a pile of similarly strangely titled envelopes, the names became slightly ludicrous. I began to wonder what on earth were Tacoma Hellfarm Tragedy, or Slave to the Squareware, or Millions of Cats that turned on their Masters thinking of when they chose the above. My personal favourite was Grassy Knoll and the Magic Bullet, who weren’t even from Texas. I promised I’d go to the gig if I ever stopped laughing. They took it quite well really.
Queenie’s first meander through Canadian music: From death country to anarchist hip hop
My music festival kicked off with Elliot Brood in the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern on Queen St. West. Elliot Brood, from Toronto, call their music Death Country. If you got Jared Leto, put him in charge of the Rolling Stones, and sent them on a tour of Kentucky weddings, you’d get Elliot Brood. Kick ass they were and we all bopped like crazy even though it was only nine o’clock on a Thursday night.
Afterwards I walked up to Bloor St. to Lee’s Palace to see The Novaks. One of the other volunteers had recommended them. Up is the correct word, as Toronto inclines gently away from Lake Ontario. You can feel it in the back of your legs as you hoof up Chinatown and what I suspect might be Irishtown (judging from the number of accents I recognised) in thirty degrees with humidity. The Novaks turned out to be dreadful. Hailing from that well known metropolis of cool, Newfoundland, they played sub-sub-Bryan Adams-inspired, parka-riddled soft rock. Queenie says, get back to The Rock where you belong, lads and listen to some Radiohead. The other volunteer thought they were cute. She had seen them before. I suspected I had been lured to the venue as some kind of chatting up sidekick/ exotic Irish conversation starter so I hoofed it back down to the Shoe to see Christine Fellows.
This Manitoba woman and her band are the Canadian version of Badly Drawn Boy. Those of you who know me know my feelings on BDB. He is to be tolerated rather than adored, although he is a talented little sod. I felt the same about Christine, although her obvious nerves did appeal to my better nature. I also bestow her the quote of the festival award:
“We’ve left our two love songs ‘till last. I hope you like them. This first one’s called Roadkill.”
Classy bird.
I was wandering down Queen, trying to decide between Marah and The Telepathic Butterflies, when I met MC Caldwell, who had hired me, and her posse heading down to Funhaus to see C’mon. C’mon are a very loud guitar band who have not much going for them except for the second coolest woman in rock as their lead guitarist. I want to be a lead guitarist. It was good fun though. We ended up the night getting pizza for the coolest woman in rock (MC) from the gourmet pizza takeaway place next to the Bovine Sex Club, before heading down to Healys to see Dope Poet Society.
Healy’s is cool. All leopard skin booths and pool tables and quirky side rooms. Dope Poet Society were political. Very political. Did you know that George Bush is the real terrorist? No? Have you been living in a box for the last five years? Yes? I was hoping for a little more sophistication, but you can’t do much in a twenty minute set, I suppose. Anyways, worth checking out for the longest dreadlocks I’ve ever seen – down to his knees they were.
My first night ended with me finding various members of Sundogs asleep in the bar of the hostel at about 3am. It had been a long, gentle downward musical slope from the heights of Elliot Brood. And my calves hurt, so I went to bed.
Friday - Sundogs melt in El Mocambo’s heat and Queenie meets Bullmoose in the Black Bull
I met various members of Sundogs (who are all very nice) in the hostel during the day and they told me they were playing El Mocambo that night (their second gig) so I promised I would go as I had missed them the night before. They were pretty good. Their songs are good and they play very well. They should stop watching U2 videos and get some moves of their own though. Afterwards, we stayed for a while and watched The Grates from Australia. Who were trying to be The Pixies. With mixed results. They had a female lead singer who hopped up and down like Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and asked all the men in the audience to come to the front in a little baby doll voice.
And they did…………………
Not being a man, I gave up on them after twenty minutes and went to the Black Bull with Sumond and Geetha. They are volunteering as well. They’ve just moved up from Texas, and are teaching Biomedical Engineering in the university here. Sumond is a professor and he is YOUNGER THAN ME. We saw Bullmoose, a Led-inspired three piece from Montreal with a singing bassist. He had an oobit as well. I love a singing bassist myself. I just adore men who can walk and chew at the same time. Geetha made me chat him up afterwards, which was a mistake because he was a bit thick, which spoiled the whole effect for me. So we nipped back down to the ‘Shoe to see The Mark Inside, who were one of those bands where all the members look younger than Queenie’s little sister and thus make her feel very old and run down.
It was very hot. I wandered outside for a smoke and ran into Sundogs, who were melting into little puddles on the pavement. I took pity on them and brought them back up to the Black Bull, as it has a patio for sitting and drinking in the outside. I introduced them to Bullmoose as well. Lucky them. The guitarist gave me a cd when he was leaving. I don’t know if it was a present or if he thought I was useful.
One of the more interesting things I’ve learned over the years is that hanging out with bands is incredibly boring. All they do is bitch about their gig, their conditions, their flights, their support act, their instruments, the blister on their thumb, blah, blah, blah. You know guys, the alternative is to give up the music and go into banking and make shit loads of money to pay for air-conditioned rooms. This is the main reason I have never followed up on my desire to be a rock chick. I have a feeling I’d end up having to keep a nail clippers handy. In case they needed their pinkies done. And I’m not that kinda chick.
We headed down to the Drake Hotel for an after-party and I had to queue to get in. Albeit only for a minute, but I got in a right snot about it. The Drake was mobbed and full of pompous staff members and made me think of The Kitchen that was, back in the ‘days of tiger money’, so I legged it and walked home down Queen St., which was still milling with punks and hip hoppers and Goths and stoners and gay couples holding hands and every type of person you never see in Dublin no matter how diverse it’s getting. Which was great.
Saturday – Bovaries in the Bovine, Drum N Bass in the Funhaus, and MC in El Mo
Saturday I had to work another full day at the festival conference, but as it was starting to wind down administration wise it was actually quite boring and involved a lot of hanging around and chatting to my co-workers and getting the low down on all the bitching and fighting to which, being a foreigner and not looking for a job through NXNE, I was oblivious. Afterwards, I went back to the hostel for a bit of a sleep. No luck though, Jan, the weirdo Singaporean ‘entertainer’, who appeared to be living in the room while trying to get a work permit, insisted on telling me about her day. Which was very bad. I’m not quite sure why, but I think it involves her not getting a work permit and immediate wealth and fame. Or failing that, a rich boyfriend. I should get a rich boyfriend, apparently. Then I wouldn’t have to work. I tried to point out to her that there’s all kinds of work, and no such thing as a free rich boyfriend but she was having none of it.
In the absence of sleep I took another shower and headed down Queen St. in search of music. I bumped into Ryan and another volunteer and they brought me to the Bovine Sex Club to see the last song by The Clicks. Girl band. Pretty cool. I only saw one song. Then back to the gourmet pizza. I was sat outside talking to some guy they had introduced me to, called Ruksand, when I realised Ryan had disappeared. Never mind. I offered the guy a cigarette and suddenly realised he was a she. Ooops. We went over and sat in her car and had a smoke and she told me her story.
Her look gets her mistaken all the time. She was in a shop one day filling out a form and an Arab guy came in and started complaining to the shop assistant and kept calling to Sandra – Hey buddy – to get her in on the act. And then she turned round and said - Yes honey pie, yes sugar butt, yes lovekin, whaddya want pumpkin – over and over to him in a falsetto voice. The guy got such a fright he backed out of the shop in complete disarray. I don’t know how well this story translates, but I was on the floor of the car laughing as she acted it out for me. Hilarious.
Then she told me her theory on feminism, which is that it is performance. And that women have bovaries, which are a mixture of balls and ovaries. And that we are more powerful than we can imagine and just have to use our bovaries to keep men in line. I love the idea that they are bovaries, with all the connotations that brings with it.
She used to be a customs official, but she’d taken a year off to try to make it in music. She told me another performance she’d done in work, which I can't divulge.
We went back into Bovine and watched Kuma, from Seattle, which was the band of the festival for me. Why are they not signed? They’re a really good, loud five piece. The lead singer is a woman that looks like a dark-haired Debbie Harry and performed like the proud daughter of Kate Bush and Courtney Love. They looked great. They sounded great. They had a song called Matches and Gasoline. What more do you want? Check them out – http://www.kumasound.com/.
Afterwards, we floated up and down Queen St. a bit, looking for an ATM, went in the back of the Bovine to their smoking room, which is a copy of the Whelan’s room. With a roof. And air-conditioning. Finally, around one am, we headed up to Funhaus for a six hour Drum n Bass night which had a very young crowd.
It was quite evangelical. A lot of shouting about the power of you and how you are the greatest and for a while I thought I was at one of those charismatic Christian events they have in the RDS during Lent. It was strange. After a while I got bored and wandered up the strip and bumped into MC outside the Horseshoe and we went up to El Mocambo.
Everyone was there. Everyone was really drunk and they all seemed to be really upset about some row that had taken place earlier in the day. What is it about organisations? It was too hot, so I walked home again around four. Sundogs were asleep in the lounge again.
Sunday films and volunteer party
I couldn’t believe I had to get up and work on Sunday. Having said that, I whinged so much at the team leader she let me go at 2pm. So not too bad. I tried to sleep again, then headed up to El Mocambo to the volunteer party. Too hot. Grabbed my goodie bag, my free beers and my dinner and then we went and sat outside the Black Bull. Me, MC, Gwen and Paul, Geetha and Sumond, and a friend of MC’s called Karen, who spent the evening tatting her hair on the simple premise that it was better to be out, enjoying herself while tatting, than sitting at home tatting. Which is the way I view the world myself, so tatt away, girl.
I talked to Karen for most of the night. It was one of those great conversations that covered everything from women in the labour movement to politics to horoscopes to past relationships to beer. She was very interesting, although quite intense, and I couldn’t understand why until she told me she’d had a really serious brain injury a few years back and pulled herself out of a coma and survived against all the odds. I was so impressed. Apart from the intensity, which she said was due to her need to concentrate on the conversation, and which occurs in many many people who have no medical excuse for it at all, there was absolutely no sign of any difference in her manner. Human beings are miraculous creatures, aren’t they.
I was sad to say goodbye to them all, but so tired…………. Went back to the hostel of heat and fans and undiscovered Singaporean rock chicks and slept soundly, knowing I had the next day to myself.
Top festival. Will definitely do it again.
Top Acts – Kuma, Elliot Brood
Damn, I missed – The Telepathic Butterflies
Pictures should be under the title now.
The journey is the important part of going anywhere they say. I think this saying was invented before air travel. Which is boring and uncomfortable unless you’re rich. But this time I sort of lucked out. Air Canada flight AC 857 I love you! Why? Because you gave me seat 31C. First time ever. The nice seat beside the emergency exit on the aisle. Got the screwy African bloke who demanded whiskey and shouted at the stewardesses as well. Mixed blessings. But iPods are great, you can just stare into space and pretend you can’t hear anything.
Managed to sleeo on the plane and also finally read A Wild Sheep Chase, by Haruki Murakami, which is an amazing meditation on power and its impact on the soul. I think. It’s so hard to know with Murakami. He did a little bit of sitting in the deep black well this time as well, a recurring motif with him.
Got the bags back, the wheel on the big one is bust, which is a big problem. Shared a taxi downtown with some nasty business man going to the Hilton, but got ten dollars off from the Sikh taxi man for rolling my eyes at the other guy’s rudeness.
A quick check-in to the hostel and then over to the Holiday Inn to start my first shift working on NXNE. I was put doing the goodie bags. Everyone was a bit stand offish at the beginning, but when we broke for pizza and coke, the ice broke as well. It is truly true that everyone feels uncomfortable at a party, and that should make you feel comfortable. Then I produced the bottle of whiskey for MC and suddenly I was in. Whisked off to the pre-festival party, which was held in an old chapel a few blocks from the hotel. Ryan and Max were deputised to look after me. Ryan is a long-haired indie kid who looks like a character in an offbeat, quirky indie movie. Predictably enough he turned out to be an actor. Max is a tall, quiet guy who runs his own internet advertising company and spent the evening trying to get me to drink shots of some weird German cough medicine. Because I’m Irish and I should, apparently. Ended up standing in the garden smoking. Same same wherever you go. Only difference is it’s much warmer over here.
The Irish band Sundogs turned up. Plastered. They were very funny. They’re in the same hostel as me.
The hostel is hot, hot, hot. No air-conditioning and really noisy fans all night so it’s very difficult to sleep. I’m sharing with five other women. The room is tiny, with six bunkbeds and oceans of bags, clothes, shoes, make up, toiletries, towels and Rough Guides strewn across the floor. There is a chair that keeps getting in the way, so someone puts it up against my bunk every night. Then I arrive in at four am and fall over it and wake everyone up. The tension is building slowly.
Artist Registration – where do they get their names from?
Working on the festival conference for three days meant access to the air-conditioned luxury of the Holiday Inn on King St. West. The other festival taking place there at the time was a Fame and Beauty conference, populated by buff, tanned, blonde, spectacularly muscular body builders. And their totebag and waterbottle-laden boyfriends. An interesting juxtaposition to the rag tag band of rappers, rockers, hip hoppers, songsters and industry heads that milled in and out of the conference panels and celebrity interviews.
I was put on Artist Registration, partnered with a chick called Bree. No resemblance personalitywise to the Housewife. She was more of a Lynette. Before she got married and had the kids. All ideas, ambition and a good sense of humour. Lots of Brees around though. Too many leaders and not enough troops. Always the way with volunteerism of course. Thruppence looking down on tuppence ha’penny as we would say in Springtown.
We opened at twelve pm and I was really surprised to see a huge queue forming which went on all day. What happened to the rock and roll lifestyle? To partying all night and sleeping all day? Is that why the rest of us get no sleep anymore. (Queenie’s had less than five hours sleep for ten nights on the trot now and she’s getting a little cranky. She left her camera on the bus today and just deleted this entire article and is writing it again.)
Anyways, the artists were mostly very polite and nice and some were just downright excited to be in Toronto. The heatwave was only gearing up at that stage. Only one or two tossers. We had a lot of fun with the names. Bands names have always mystified me anyway – where do they get them from? But in this context, where we had to ask them their band name and then find a manilla envelope containing their badges, in a pile of similarly strangely titled envelopes, the names became slightly ludicrous. I began to wonder what on earth were Tacoma Hellfarm Tragedy, or Slave to the Squareware, or Millions of Cats that turned on their Masters thinking of when they chose the above. My personal favourite was Grassy Knoll and the Magic Bullet, who weren’t even from Texas. I promised I’d go to the gig if I ever stopped laughing. They took it quite well really.
Queenie’s first meander through Canadian music: From death country to anarchist hip hop
My music festival kicked off with Elliot Brood in the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern on Queen St. West. Elliot Brood, from Toronto, call their music Death Country. If you got Jared Leto, put him in charge of the Rolling Stones, and sent them on a tour of Kentucky weddings, you’d get Elliot Brood. Kick ass they were and we all bopped like crazy even though it was only nine o’clock on a Thursday night.
Afterwards I walked up to Bloor St. to Lee’s Palace to see The Novaks. One of the other volunteers had recommended them. Up is the correct word, as Toronto inclines gently away from Lake Ontario. You can feel it in the back of your legs as you hoof up Chinatown and what I suspect might be Irishtown (judging from the number of accents I recognised) in thirty degrees with humidity. The Novaks turned out to be dreadful. Hailing from that well known metropolis of cool, Newfoundland, they played sub-sub-Bryan Adams-inspired, parka-riddled soft rock. Queenie says, get back to The Rock where you belong, lads and listen to some Radiohead. The other volunteer thought they were cute. She had seen them before. I suspected I had been lured to the venue as some kind of chatting up sidekick/ exotic Irish conversation starter so I hoofed it back down to the Shoe to see Christine Fellows.
This Manitoba woman and her band are the Canadian version of Badly Drawn Boy. Those of you who know me know my feelings on BDB. He is to be tolerated rather than adored, although he is a talented little sod. I felt the same about Christine, although her obvious nerves did appeal to my better nature. I also bestow her the quote of the festival award:
“We’ve left our two love songs ‘till last. I hope you like them. This first one’s called Roadkill.”
Classy bird.
I was wandering down Queen, trying to decide between Marah and The Telepathic Butterflies, when I met MC Caldwell, who had hired me, and her posse heading down to Funhaus to see C’mon. C’mon are a very loud guitar band who have not much going for them except for the second coolest woman in rock as their lead guitarist. I want to be a lead guitarist. It was good fun though. We ended up the night getting pizza for the coolest woman in rock (MC) from the gourmet pizza takeaway place next to the Bovine Sex Club, before heading down to Healys to see Dope Poet Society.
Healy’s is cool. All leopard skin booths and pool tables and quirky side rooms. Dope Poet Society were political. Very political. Did you know that George Bush is the real terrorist? No? Have you been living in a box for the last five years? Yes? I was hoping for a little more sophistication, but you can’t do much in a twenty minute set, I suppose. Anyways, worth checking out for the longest dreadlocks I’ve ever seen – down to his knees they were.
My first night ended with me finding various members of Sundogs asleep in the bar of the hostel at about 3am. It had been a long, gentle downward musical slope from the heights of Elliot Brood. And my calves hurt, so I went to bed.
Friday - Sundogs melt in El Mocambo’s heat and Queenie meets Bullmoose in the Black Bull
I met various members of Sundogs (who are all very nice) in the hostel during the day and they told me they were playing El Mocambo that night (their second gig) so I promised I would go as I had missed them the night before. They were pretty good. Their songs are good and they play very well. They should stop watching U2 videos and get some moves of their own though. Afterwards, we stayed for a while and watched The Grates from Australia. Who were trying to be The Pixies. With mixed results. They had a female lead singer who hopped up and down like Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and asked all the men in the audience to come to the front in a little baby doll voice.
And they did…………………
Not being a man, I gave up on them after twenty minutes and went to the Black Bull with Sumond and Geetha. They are volunteering as well. They’ve just moved up from Texas, and are teaching Biomedical Engineering in the university here. Sumond is a professor and he is YOUNGER THAN ME. We saw Bullmoose, a Led-inspired three piece from Montreal with a singing bassist. He had an oobit as well. I love a singing bassist myself. I just adore men who can walk and chew at the same time. Geetha made me chat him up afterwards, which was a mistake because he was a bit thick, which spoiled the whole effect for me. So we nipped back down to the ‘Shoe to see The Mark Inside, who were one of those bands where all the members look younger than Queenie’s little sister and thus make her feel very old and run down.
It was very hot. I wandered outside for a smoke and ran into Sundogs, who were melting into little puddles on the pavement. I took pity on them and brought them back up to the Black Bull, as it has a patio for sitting and drinking in the outside. I introduced them to Bullmoose as well. Lucky them. The guitarist gave me a cd when he was leaving. I don’t know if it was a present or if he thought I was useful.
One of the more interesting things I’ve learned over the years is that hanging out with bands is incredibly boring. All they do is bitch about their gig, their conditions, their flights, their support act, their instruments, the blister on their thumb, blah, blah, blah. You know guys, the alternative is to give up the music and go into banking and make shit loads of money to pay for air-conditioned rooms. This is the main reason I have never followed up on my desire to be a rock chick. I have a feeling I’d end up having to keep a nail clippers handy. In case they needed their pinkies done. And I’m not that kinda chick.
We headed down to the Drake Hotel for an after-party and I had to queue to get in. Albeit only for a minute, but I got in a right snot about it. The Drake was mobbed and full of pompous staff members and made me think of The Kitchen that was, back in the ‘days of tiger money’, so I legged it and walked home down Queen St., which was still milling with punks and hip hoppers and Goths and stoners and gay couples holding hands and every type of person you never see in Dublin no matter how diverse it’s getting. Which was great.
Saturday – Bovaries in the Bovine, Drum N Bass in the Funhaus, and MC in El Mo
Saturday I had to work another full day at the festival conference, but as it was starting to wind down administration wise it was actually quite boring and involved a lot of hanging around and chatting to my co-workers and getting the low down on all the bitching and fighting to which, being a foreigner and not looking for a job through NXNE, I was oblivious. Afterwards, I went back to the hostel for a bit of a sleep. No luck though, Jan, the weirdo Singaporean ‘entertainer’, who appeared to be living in the room while trying to get a work permit, insisted on telling me about her day. Which was very bad. I’m not quite sure why, but I think it involves her not getting a work permit and immediate wealth and fame. Or failing that, a rich boyfriend. I should get a rich boyfriend, apparently. Then I wouldn’t have to work. I tried to point out to her that there’s all kinds of work, and no such thing as a free rich boyfriend but she was having none of it.
In the absence of sleep I took another shower and headed down Queen St. in search of music. I bumped into Ryan and another volunteer and they brought me to the Bovine Sex Club to see the last song by The Clicks. Girl band. Pretty cool. I only saw one song. Then back to the gourmet pizza. I was sat outside talking to some guy they had introduced me to, called Ruksand, when I realised Ryan had disappeared. Never mind. I offered the guy a cigarette and suddenly realised he was a she. Ooops. We went over and sat in her car and had a smoke and she told me her story.
Her look gets her mistaken all the time. She was in a shop one day filling out a form and an Arab guy came in and started complaining to the shop assistant and kept calling to Sandra – Hey buddy – to get her in on the act. And then she turned round and said - Yes honey pie, yes sugar butt, yes lovekin, whaddya want pumpkin – over and over to him in a falsetto voice. The guy got such a fright he backed out of the shop in complete disarray. I don’t know how well this story translates, but I was on the floor of the car laughing as she acted it out for me. Hilarious.
Then she told me her theory on feminism, which is that it is performance. And that women have bovaries, which are a mixture of balls and ovaries. And that we are more powerful than we can imagine and just have to use our bovaries to keep men in line. I love the idea that they are bovaries, with all the connotations that brings with it.
She used to be a customs official, but she’d taken a year off to try to make it in music. She told me another performance she’d done in work, which I can't divulge.
We went back into Bovine and watched Kuma, from Seattle, which was the band of the festival for me. Why are they not signed? They’re a really good, loud five piece. The lead singer is a woman that looks like a dark-haired Debbie Harry and performed like the proud daughter of Kate Bush and Courtney Love. They looked great. They sounded great. They had a song called Matches and Gasoline. What more do you want? Check them out – http://www.kumasound.com/.
Afterwards, we floated up and down Queen St. a bit, looking for an ATM, went in the back of the Bovine to their smoking room, which is a copy of the Whelan’s room. With a roof. And air-conditioning. Finally, around one am, we headed up to Funhaus for a six hour Drum n Bass night which had a very young crowd.
It was quite evangelical. A lot of shouting about the power of you and how you are the greatest and for a while I thought I was at one of those charismatic Christian events they have in the RDS during Lent. It was strange. After a while I got bored and wandered up the strip and bumped into MC outside the Horseshoe and we went up to El Mocambo.
Everyone was there. Everyone was really drunk and they all seemed to be really upset about some row that had taken place earlier in the day. What is it about organisations? It was too hot, so I walked home again around four. Sundogs were asleep in the lounge again.
Sunday films and volunteer party
I couldn’t believe I had to get up and work on Sunday. Having said that, I whinged so much at the team leader she let me go at 2pm. So not too bad. I tried to sleep again, then headed up to El Mocambo to the volunteer party. Too hot. Grabbed my goodie bag, my free beers and my dinner and then we went and sat outside the Black Bull. Me, MC, Gwen and Paul, Geetha and Sumond, and a friend of MC’s called Karen, who spent the evening tatting her hair on the simple premise that it was better to be out, enjoying herself while tatting, than sitting at home tatting. Which is the way I view the world myself, so tatt away, girl.
I talked to Karen for most of the night. It was one of those great conversations that covered everything from women in the labour movement to politics to horoscopes to past relationships to beer. She was very interesting, although quite intense, and I couldn’t understand why until she told me she’d had a really serious brain injury a few years back and pulled herself out of a coma and survived against all the odds. I was so impressed. Apart from the intensity, which she said was due to her need to concentrate on the conversation, and which occurs in many many people who have no medical excuse for it at all, there was absolutely no sign of any difference in her manner. Human beings are miraculous creatures, aren’t they.
I was sad to say goodbye to them all, but so tired…………. Went back to the hostel of heat and fans and undiscovered Singaporean rock chicks and slept soundly, knowing I had the next day to myself.
Top festival. Will definitely do it again.
Top Acts – Kuma, Elliot Brood
Damn, I missed – The Telepathic Butterflies
Pictures should be under the title now.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
So long, farewell, I bid you all adieu, etc., etc.
All packed now, ready to go. Just waiting on my lift from Springtown to Dublin.
Here are some things I will miss about home.
Whelan’s pub and live music venue, Wexford St., Dublin
Dreadful beer. Even worse brown plastic statue of a man standing at the bar that I still smile at sometimes in the low light. No seats. Tiny stage. However, it has the best smoking area in Dublin. Where else can you bum a smoke from a Lions captain, an internationally acclaimed bluegrass musician and Mundy all in the one night?
Nowhere else, that’s the answer.
Fayles’ Hardware shop, Main St., Springtown
I love the smell of Fayles, a mixture of potting compost, plastic kitchenware and paint. A concrete floor piled with every imaginable type of tool. Saucepan, rug, seed packet, gardening implement, mirror, bathroom fixture, knife, screw, nut bolt and shelf. A big builders’ providers out back – a cornucopia of four by twos and other types of construction material. With everything priced individually to be written up in the big book. And rung in on the old cash register. And the staff, universally grumpy but well on top of the stock and always so helpful. Able to find anything for you.
Zandra’s Ladies Fashion House, Main St., Springtown
Where else can you get fabulous, luxurious, glamorous, French labels at the cutting edge of this year’s trends, at a fraction of the price you’d pay in Dublin?
Nowhere else, that’s where.
Jabba the Cat, my garden, Springtown
I found her on the street on my way down to Smoothies’ pub a couple of winters ago. It was a typical frosty, cold Springtown night and she was a little black scrap of a thing, huddled against the wheel of a car, mewling pitifully for someone to love her. Fully grown now, she is, ensconced with the Queen Mother and Father, she is spoiled rotten and has a sleek, radiant coat, a big belly from all the feeding she gets and the most laid back attitude to life I have ever observed in a mammal. When I come back I’m going to live in a house with a porch and rock in a rocking chair with Jabba on my lap.
The Chestnut, Green St., Springtown
A fire flickering at either end. The lads supping creamy pints of Guinness and settling into a session with guitars, flute, mandolin, bodhran and harmonica. Going out for a smoke under the gas heaters in the yard. Realising that it’s only my Dublin friends who have given up smoking, and everyone I know in Springtown is out there too. DJ sessions on bank holiday weekends. Local guys playing their record collections on a wet Sunday. Discovering JJ Cale on one of those Sundays. Watching rugby matches on the small screen. Getting a crick in my neck doing it. Conor’s shots. Conor ordering me to drink them. Stephens’ Day in the afternoon. Mulled wine at Christmas. Thanks guys!
Rugby internationals, Dublin 4
The anticipation. Having a steak sandwich in Jury’s beforehand. Wedging myself into Smyth’s afterwards. Finding everyone from Springtown in Doheny and Nesbitts around ten that evening. The other fans – Welshmen singing, Scottish men drinking in kilts, Englishmen slagging us, French disdain, Italian smiles.
Gruel, Dame St., Dublin
Dinner for a tenner. Bangers and mash with the onion relish. Rocket fuel in a water glass peddled as red wine. Upstairs in the smallest restaurant in the world, or downstairs where the smell of damp would knock you out and the tables all wobble.
The coffee booth at the Ha’penny Bridge, Dublin
Sitting there after work in the sunshine, drinking a latte, watching the kids fish for the little crabs that populate the Liffey. Getting my purse nicked, chatting to tourists, being touched by some sob story. Handing over my last fiver. Watching people clatter over and back across the lovely old iron bridge.
The Cobalt Café, North Great Georges St., Dublin
Great coffee, yummy toasted sandwiches and lovely staff. You never know who will be there but there’s always someone you know. All the art for sale on the wall, the glass cases with their jewellery that you never remember to buy. At Christmas time the piles and piles of pot pourri. A bird flies in most days and dazes itself flying around the tall Georgian room, before someone gently shoos it out into the garden. Which is for smokers only.
Cobblers shoe shop, Main St., Loughrea
The smallest shoe shop in Ireland I’d say. And the best. Shoes to die for. To kill for. To dream about. To save up for. To ooh and aah over. To fight over. I got the last pair of green suede flip flops the other day – thanks Nadia for bowing out of the race so graciously.
Last post from Ireland.
Next post from Canuckstan.
See you all soon.
Queenie + Percy
Here are some things I will miss about home.
Whelan’s pub and live music venue, Wexford St., Dublin
Dreadful beer. Even worse brown plastic statue of a man standing at the bar that I still smile at sometimes in the low light. No seats. Tiny stage. However, it has the best smoking area in Dublin. Where else can you bum a smoke from a Lions captain, an internationally acclaimed bluegrass musician and Mundy all in the one night?
Nowhere else, that’s the answer.
Fayles’ Hardware shop, Main St., Springtown
I love the smell of Fayles, a mixture of potting compost, plastic kitchenware and paint. A concrete floor piled with every imaginable type of tool. Saucepan, rug, seed packet, gardening implement, mirror, bathroom fixture, knife, screw, nut bolt and shelf. A big builders’ providers out back – a cornucopia of four by twos and other types of construction material. With everything priced individually to be written up in the big book. And rung in on the old cash register. And the staff, universally grumpy but well on top of the stock and always so helpful. Able to find anything for you.
Zandra’s Ladies Fashion House, Main St., Springtown
Where else can you get fabulous, luxurious, glamorous, French labels at the cutting edge of this year’s trends, at a fraction of the price you’d pay in Dublin?
Nowhere else, that’s where.
Jabba the Cat, my garden, Springtown
I found her on the street on my way down to Smoothies’ pub a couple of winters ago. It was a typical frosty, cold Springtown night and she was a little black scrap of a thing, huddled against the wheel of a car, mewling pitifully for someone to love her. Fully grown now, she is, ensconced with the Queen Mother and Father, she is spoiled rotten and has a sleek, radiant coat, a big belly from all the feeding she gets and the most laid back attitude to life I have ever observed in a mammal. When I come back I’m going to live in a house with a porch and rock in a rocking chair with Jabba on my lap.
The Chestnut, Green St., Springtown
A fire flickering at either end. The lads supping creamy pints of Guinness and settling into a session with guitars, flute, mandolin, bodhran and harmonica. Going out for a smoke under the gas heaters in the yard. Realising that it’s only my Dublin friends who have given up smoking, and everyone I know in Springtown is out there too. DJ sessions on bank holiday weekends. Local guys playing their record collections on a wet Sunday. Discovering JJ Cale on one of those Sundays. Watching rugby matches on the small screen. Getting a crick in my neck doing it. Conor’s shots. Conor ordering me to drink them. Stephens’ Day in the afternoon. Mulled wine at Christmas. Thanks guys!
Rugby internationals, Dublin 4
The anticipation. Having a steak sandwich in Jury’s beforehand. Wedging myself into Smyth’s afterwards. Finding everyone from Springtown in Doheny and Nesbitts around ten that evening. The other fans – Welshmen singing, Scottish men drinking in kilts, Englishmen slagging us, French disdain, Italian smiles.
Gruel, Dame St., Dublin
Dinner for a tenner. Bangers and mash with the onion relish. Rocket fuel in a water glass peddled as red wine. Upstairs in the smallest restaurant in the world, or downstairs where the smell of damp would knock you out and the tables all wobble.
The coffee booth at the Ha’penny Bridge, Dublin
Sitting there after work in the sunshine, drinking a latte, watching the kids fish for the little crabs that populate the Liffey. Getting my purse nicked, chatting to tourists, being touched by some sob story. Handing over my last fiver. Watching people clatter over and back across the lovely old iron bridge.
The Cobalt Café, North Great Georges St., Dublin
Great coffee, yummy toasted sandwiches and lovely staff. You never know who will be there but there’s always someone you know. All the art for sale on the wall, the glass cases with their jewellery that you never remember to buy. At Christmas time the piles and piles of pot pourri. A bird flies in most days and dazes itself flying around the tall Georgian room, before someone gently shoos it out into the garden. Which is for smokers only.
Cobblers shoe shop, Main St., Loughrea
The smallest shoe shop in Ireland I’d say. And the best. Shoes to die for. To kill for. To dream about. To save up for. To ooh and aah over. To fight over. I got the last pair of green suede flip flops the other day – thanks Nadia for bowing out of the race so graciously.
Last post from Ireland.
Next post from Canuckstan.
See you all soon.
Queenie + Percy
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